We are warned. The house lights are up. There will be no applause. This is not a performance.
An accompanist, Cody T. Gilette, and his page turner (played by the statuesque Alice Sherman) enter, waving at members of the audience. The pianist adjusts his seat and settles in with a comedic flair.
From the left, Maria Callas (Ellen Geer) envelopes the moment; she is a shadowy diva extraordinaire, adorned in wide black dress pants, a jeweled dinner jacket, with her long trademark dark hair pulled back with a diamond barrette.
Callas has arrived.
The world may continue to breathe.
Master Class was written by four-time Tony winner, Terrance McNally, who also wrote Kiss of the Spider Woman, Ragtime, and The Full Monty. The playwright is 66 now, and he wrote this when he was twenty-three, as a young fan, star-struck by opera and musical theater and, of course, Maria Callas.
PHOTO BY MIRIAM GEER  Ellen Geer as Maria Callas instructs student soprano Sharon (Meaghan Boeing), who becomes devastated by the Diva's insults and flees from the class. She returns later and, under Callas' tutalage, her voice grows in intensity, showing real talent. |
And, this is a play about Callas, the world famous opera singer with a larger- than-life personality as well as a larger- than-life reputation for scandal and drama. Although Callas was born to Greek parents in New York in 1923, and raised in Greece after her parents separated in 1937. She was also "Italian" by her first marriage to Giovanni Battista Meneghini, an industrialist many years her senior.
Callas, thought by many to be the greatest dramatic soprano of her time, possessed a striking, mesmerizing presence. While some critics found her voice imperfect, she brought intensity and strong emotion to characters in ways that no one else before or after her has. Personally, her life was as tumultuous as the operatic roles she portrayed. There were public incidents involving her temper, her business feuds, her jealousies, and her fiery love life.
Based upon transcripts from a series of 23 master classes (with 25 students) that Callas gave at Julliard University between 1971 and 1972, the play Master Class shows Callas in a delicate period of life, a few years before she dies of a heart attack at age 53, when her voice is nearly gone, and her career as an opera singer is in a slow, contained downward spiral.
"This isn't about me," claims Callas when first she addresses Julliard students auditing the class (the audience): "How IS everyone? You're all scared of me" she laughs "I bark quite a bit but I don't bite!" And so the "class" begins. We are her captives, her victims and, ultimately, her fans, along for a tumultuous, bumpy ride.
Throughout McNally's love story in two acts, Callas reminisces about her colorful life, performing for the Germans who occupied Greece during World War II, and her romantic and sexual exploits with the Greek oil tycoon Aristotle Onassis (who later marries Jackie Kennedy).
Remarking, "I'm not one to boast," she recounts her many triumphs on the operatic stage. Between the stories – and reminiscences of her troubled life recalled in dreamlike monologues – three student opera singers audition (two female sopranos and a male tenor) and are given criticism and suggestions regarding phrasing, breath control, diction, accents, phrasing, tempo, and scales by Callas, who claims, not shyly, "Who I am is discipline, courage and the guts."
The first soprano is Sophie DePalma (played to great effect by Elizabeth Tobias), who appears decked out in a perky, bright orange mini-dress, white tights and large Mary Jane shoes that accent her awkward pigeon-toed stance.
"I lived, breathed and ate music" Callas admonishes her, and with a withering glance, tells her, "You need to get a look. Get one as soon as possible."
During Sophie's audition, Callas explains carefully, that the young girl needs to feel the music, the phrasing, and understand the words. Sophie has the beginner's luck and the audacity to select as her audition piece, the sleepwalking scene from an aria that Callas made famous: one of the most difficult of all arias, La Sonnambula, where the singer wails over a lost love. Again and again, Callas interrupts Sophie, correcting her Frankenstein walk, transforming it into a tortured, emotional grand gesture where Callas demonstrates by dropping to her knees, utterly seducing the audience.
The following two auditions adhere to the same victim-master dynamic, with the only deviation coming from the Italian tenor, Tony (Andreas Beckett), who is brash and cocky and wows Callas with his sweet voice. Beckett, full of charisma, with a strong, sure tone has fun with this role, wooing La Divina who is, eventually, moved to tears.
In the midst of these student-master teacher interactions, the audience learns of Callas' love affairs, her early days as a fat, ugly second sister, her life in wartime, her inadequate rivals in the world of opera and those who have belittled and beaten her down. "Art" Callas says "is domination. It's making people think that for that precise moment in time there is only one way, one voice. Yours. A feat only the most exceptional of artists are able to accomplish."
Lastly, a soprano called Sharon (Meaghan Boeing) arrives in an over-the- top fancy formal gown. Her selection? Verdi's complex "Macbeth." Callas senses Sharon's sincerity and quizzes her to find the depth inside her performance "Is there anything you would kill for. . . A man, a career?" They spar off and insults are thrown, and Sharon, devastated, flees, we learn later, to throw up in the bathroom. She returns later and, when Callas works with her, Boeing's voice grows in intensity and her interpretation of the music ultimately shows real talent.
As an actress, Geer is at her best portraying Callas relating her life story, and times when she took chances that led to the story of Callas, the diva.
Geer is at her best demonstrating how - not why or what - but how to feel a role, how to interpret and make a character one's own. She is at her peak when she pauses and waits for the audience to ingest her words, rather than jumping aggressively to the next line. True power as a performer is containing the pauses not the notes.
Not just any actress can pull off this role and, except for a couple of line prompts, Geer excels at meeting her mark in this work, which is nearly a two-hour monologue. Geer, you feel, has been to this dark place. She has lived in Maria's house. This performance is not a mask or a costume.
Even those who are unfamiliar with opera or Julliard or Maria Callas will find Master Class fresh, entertaining and utterly an intellectual delight.
Master Class runs through September 25, at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga, 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd. 90290. For information and tickets: www.theatricum.com, (310) 455-3723. Tickets: $32 (lower tier); $20 (upper tier)–Seniors, students, Equity members: $20/$15; Children 5-11: $10
Picnickers are welcome before and after shows and picnic tables and benches are provided in a lovely wooded area at the entrance to the theater. The Hamlet Hut offers snacks at intermission.
The audience is advised to dress in layers, since summer evenings can get chilly. Bring pillows or cushions for the bench seating.
