Perth: Master Class by Terrence McNally

Master Class by Terrence McNally. His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth. Limited season. Then Victorian Arts Centre, from December 13; Playhouse, Brisbane, from January 31; Gold Coast Arts Centre, from February 21.

Verdi called it “la parola scenica”. Literally, the word staged. Made musical. Made real. The word brought to vivid and dramatic life. The most famous and melodramatic example of la parola scenica is the scene from La Traviata in which Violetta reads Germont’s note aloud. These days, sadly, that scene is done with such exaggerated pathos it becomes laughably sentimental.

But it is a letter-reading scene from another Verdi opera, Macbeth, that really tests the mettle of an opera actress. Callas, unquestionably, is the one to beat. No other soprano had the trust in the composer, or the sheer masochism, to perform the role as Verdi prescribed: “harsh, choked, dark... acted and declaimed with a veiled, black voice.”

Callas’s fire-breathing recklessness in such roles -- Medea even more so than Lady Macbeth -- probably destroyed her voice, but it made opera into a dramatic art form instead of a merely musical one. Thanks largely to Callas, opera eschewed its polite and courtly upbringing and claimed its pagan, Dionysian birth right.

But Callas narrowly missed the cut when it comes to recordings. Apart from some classic EMI mono recordings which transfer reasonably well to CD, the best recordings of Callas are of a voice that is decidedly threadbare. Coarse and uneven. Ugly. And, tragically, it is a voice detached from her intense physical presence.

As a result, more-prolific recording artists (with little of La Divina’s passion and dramatic conviction) have eclipsed her, and opera as a performing art is on the brink of becoming moribund once more.

Terrence McNally’s play Master Class (not to be confused with British playwright David Pownall’s brilliant 1983 drama about a confrontation between Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Stalin and Zhdanov) does an admirable rescue job on Callas as a difficult and iconic star. But it seems non-commital when it comes to her status as an artist. It certainly takes it for granted.

McNally has her ranting and raving that singers are “here to serve the composer” and that the composer “is god” but presents her a tyrannical and bitchy prima donna who is, apparently, envious of beauty and charm.

The play’s worst sin is that it shows Callas as ungenerous. McNally’s Callas cutely dismisses Joan Sutherland (“she does her best”) and Renata Scotto (“know your limitations”) but doesn’t once acknowledge or credit her own roots.

The real Callas rarely failed to seize an opportunity to credit the great Italian conductor Tullio Serafin as the source of her “you’ll find it in the music” maxim. A singer can find the right gesture and through-line simply by listening for the composer’s clues, she would explain.

Callas would also hark back to her teenage years at the conservatoire in Athens when she would spend entire days (10 am until stumps) watching her teacher soprano Elvira de Hidalgo work with singers of all types and abilities. Hence her belief in the master class process.

Instead, McNally gives us a diva who, in her self-imposed exile from the stage, is obsessively dramatising her life. Past and present.

Master Class is a strange mix of documentary, re-enactment and reminiscence. Using the actual master classes that Callas gave at the Julliard Scool in 1971 and 1972 as his source material, McNally shows Callas working with three young singers, who are composites of actual students. Callas bullies and cajoles, lectures and berates these blithe and youthful wannabes.

The best and most dramatic moments have Callas (an amazingly focussed and regal Amanda Muggleton) interacting with the singers during their arias. She provides both simultaneous translation and a marvellous dramatic gloss of what and why the characters are singing.

While the one and only student of the first act, Sophie de Palma (Melissa Madden Gray, star-drive barely ticking over), is a butt of the playwright’s humour, things hot up in the session with Sharon Graham (Natasha Hunter at her most engaging) in the second act. Here, we see the potential of the master class format (and get the immediate gratification of seeing a great vocal technician learning how to understand and project the emotion and truth of a role) as well as the power of the director over a script.

This is a play in praise of “la parola scenica”, but the playwright is less than equal to the task. Luckily in Rodney Fisher’s production, McNally’s script is given the best possible chance of success. Like Callas in Cherubini’s Medea, the cast and director scavenge drama from McNally’s inert words. There is a remarkable attention to detail, a cast which more than earned its first night standing ovation, excellent lighting by David Walters and a historically accurate design by Jennie Tate.

It’s hard to imagine the play better housed, too, than it is in His Majesty’s. This beautiful theatre -- with its tiers and Juliet balconies -- is like a bantam European opera house.

Master Class might not be great drama, it is undoubtedly great entertainment.


This review was published in the November 17-18 2001 edition of the Australian Financial Review.