WARNING: SPOILERS ahead for Maestro.
Bradley Cooper’s Maestro follows some of the biggest highlights of the celebrated American conductor, composer, and musician Leonard Bernstein. Cooper delivers another transformative performance similar to his Jackson Maine character in A Star is Born, completely absorbing himself into the lifelike depiction of Bernstein and some of the tragic details surrounding his personal life. Maestro is intensely focused on his relationship with his wife Felicia Montealegre, played expertly by Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman, The Great Gatsby, Drive).
As the film depicts, Leonard Bernstein suffered the loss of Felicia Montealegre due to lung cancer, which took her life in 1978 at the age of 56. One of the major parts of Bernstein’s life that the film leaves out is his struggle with his sexual identity as a gay man, which became a quality of himself that he started to accept only after Felicia’s death. Life went on for Leonard after losing Felicia, as he continued to carry out his deep, unyielding passion for music and people until the day he died.
Maestro Ending Explained
Bradley Cooper’s Maestro paints a larger-than-life portrait of Leonard Bernstein that reveals his flaws through the tragic eyes of his wife, Felicia.
Leonard Bernstein Continued His Conducting & Educational Pursuits For 12 Years After Felicia’s Death
Leonard Bernstein took roughly half a year away from the limelight to fully recover from losing Felicia in June 1978. By 1979, he was back conducting, venturing out to Germany to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic for the first and only time in his career. During the 1980s, as depicted in the film, Bernstein kept a very busy schedule, which included teaching the next generation of musicians and conductors, maintaining his strong relationship with Tanglewood in Lenox Massachusetts, and writing the opera A Quiet Place in 1983.
On Christmas Day in 1989, Bernstein conducted Beethoven’s Symphony No. in East Berlin to celebrate the destruction of the Berlin Wall. Berstein won a slew of prestigious awards throughout the final decade of his life, including the Kennedy Center Honors Award in 1980, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1985, France’s Legion of Honor in 1985, and Japan’s Praemium Imperiale in 1990. Bernstein conducted his final concert at Tanglewood in August 1990 as his health was noticeably declining.
Maestro’s 8 Biggest Changes To The True Story Of Leonard Bernstein & Felicia Montealegre
Bradley Cooper’s Maestro is intensely focused on the dynamic between legendary composer Leonard Bernstein & the love of his life, Felicia Montealegre.
Leonard Bernstein Died In October 1990, Only 5 Days After Retiring From Conducting
Leonard Bernstein officially retired from a lifetime of conducting on October 9, 1990, and remarkably died five days later, on October 14. A heavy cigarette smoker, Bernstein passed away at the age of 72 in his apartment in New York suffering from a heart attack caused by mesothelioma. Bernstein was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York next to Felicia. Bernstein never remarried after Felicia’s death and, as Maestro demonstrates, never loved any other woman the way he loved Felicia Montealegre.
Maestro
Maestro is a biographical drama about the famous composer Leonard Bernstein. Bradley Cooper stars as Leonard Bernstein and also wrote and directed the film. The movie chronicles Bernstein’s life from 1946, when he met Felicia Montealegre, through his two engagements and three children. Maya Hawke, Carey Mulligan, Sarah Silverman, and Matt Bomer star alongside Cooper.
- Release Date
- December 20, 2023
- Director
- Bradley Cooper
- Cast
- Bradley Cooper , Carey Mulligan , Maya Hawke , Sarah Silverman , Matt Bomer
- Runtime
- 156 Minutes
- Genres
- Biography , Drama , Music
- Writers
- Bradley Cooper , Josh Singer
- Studio(s)
- Amblin Entertainment
- Distributor(s)
- Netflix
