If you have never attended a master class, see the play “Master Class” at the Pagosa Springs Center for the Arts now. It opened Sept. 26 and runs weekends through Nov. 16.
If you have attended a master class, say, last fall with violinist Vadim Gluzman at Fort Lewis College or other FLC guest artists, compare that experience to one given by Maria Callas in 1971 at The Juilliard School of Music, one of the world’s most prestigious conservatories.
If you go
WHAT: “Master Class,” by Terrence McNally, Thingamajig Theatre Company, directed by Tim Moore.
WHERE: Pagosa Springs Performing Arts Center, 2313 Eagle Drive, Pagosa Springs.
WHEN: 7 p.m. Oct. 10-11, 17-18, Nov. 8-9, 15-16; 3 p.m. Nov. 9 and 16.
TICKETS: Adults $38 plus $4 convenience fee. Fort Lewis College students $15 with code from FLC. Season packages available.
MORE INFORMATION: Visit www.pagosacenter.org or call 731-7469.
Terrence McNally’s play compresses what the most celebrated opera singer of the 20th century did at the end of her career. When she could no longer perform, she encouraged the next generation to aspire to a life in art by striving for technical mastery, emotional expressiveness and dramatic skill beyond measure. In short, she urged her students to pursue excellence.
Moore’s performance is nothing short of a tour-de-force. She establishes the diva’s dominance immediately.
The play takes place in a rehearsal hall. We, the audience, are the observing students, and the action begins quietly as a stagehand (the marvelously droll Scott Morehead) dusts and arranges furniture before the class begins. He’s one of six characters: three students, an accompanist and Callas, the white-hot center of the play.
Don’t be fooled by the casual stagehand. Unlike everyone else, he’s not bedazzled by Callas. He functions to balance celebrity worship with matter-of-factness. Like an underground river, the stagehand’s presence ripples themes of status and class throughout the play – and humor.
Manny Weinstock, the Juilliard accompanist (the talented and perfectly dutiful Dale Scrivener), pays homage to Callas who is embodied by the brilliant Laura Moore. Callas enters with a stride that matches her blazing eyes, dramatic hair, extravagant makeup and starkly black outfit – all created to intimidate everyone.
“In opera, passion without intellect is no good; you will be a wild animal and not an artist.” Maria Callas
With imperial directness, Callas addresses the “class” and subsequently three nervous students. That’s the structure of the play. She cajoles and berates each student and explains to the class why she is so demanding. Only in two inner monologues does the tone and atmosphere shift. Moore’s Callas intensifies and deepens as the diva reveals the struggles of a Greek-immigrant daughter’s youth and the betrayals of adulthood.
Sophie De Palma is the first student – a slight, nervous girl played with eager freshness by Ellie O’Hara. Callas criticizes her appearance and gives a sizzling sermon about the importance of having “a look.” When Callas bluntly cuts off Sophie’s first note, the playwright’s wry sense of humor surfaces.
Director Tim Moore not only has shaped a clean and clear production of McNally’s tribute to Callas, he has subtly foregrounded the playwright’s sense of comedy. It tempers the ferocious intensity of the larger-than-life central character.
A one-hour drive from Durango, the Pagosa Center for the Arts has easy access off the main highway and plenty of free parking.
At first, the opening-weekend audience seemed unsure about McNally’s comedic moments. But soon, Moore’s attention to the twin-spirited nature of the play became clear. When Anthony Candolino (the hilariously confident Trevor Brown) entered to sing “Recondita armonia,” from Puccini’s ‘Tosca,” comedy came along. Tony, the tenor, goes beyond Sophie’s one note, but he runs into a stinging Callas criticism that changes the atmosphere.
Act II opens when the third student enters, the stylish, smart soprano Sharon Graham. She intends to sing an aria from Verdi’s “Macbeth.” Graham is portrayed by Samantha Luck, a New York-based actor and the newly appointed head of musical theater at FLC. The more mature Graham is a match for Callas, and the two proceed in an elaborate pas de deux with Callas reliving her own performance of Lady Macbeth as she shouts encouragement during Graham’s artful singing.
As Anthony Tomasini wrote in The New York Times on July 26, 2011: “There is great drama in listening to Callas at Juilliard, so vulnerable and giving as she works with a new generation of singers, pushing aside for a while any thoughts about her own future. She died just five years later.”
“Master Class” opened on Broadway in 1995 and ran two years. It won a Tony for Best Play and Zoe Caldwell won for her portrayal of Callas. It continues in performances around the world. Subsequent interpreters have included Patti LuPone, Faye Dunaway, Rita Moreno and, most recently, Tyne Daly in the 2011 Broadway revival.
Judith Reynolds is an arts journalist and member of the American Theatre Critics Association.
