Master Class, 2000-01 Season Archive

The Cast
Maria Callas. . . . . Ann Marie Snook
First Soprano (Sophie) . . . . . Emily Cottrell
Second Soprano (Sharon) . . . . . Amy Lassiter
Tenor (Tony) . . . . . Joshua Dixon
Accompanist (Lili) . . . . . Shiao Li Ding
Stagehand . . . . . Jamey Bentley

Production Staff
Director . . . . . Paul Prece
Set & Lighting Design . . . . . Tony Naylor
Costume Design . . . . . Ron Zastrow
Stage Manager . . . . . Chris Schultz
Technical Direction . . . . . Tony Naylor
Scenic Studio Supervisor . . . . . Lynn Wilson
Master Class illustration . . . . . Barbara Waterman-Peters
Publicity . . . . . Paul Prece
Theatre Shop/Crew . . . . . David Deloach, Tawny Maynard, Dustin Smith, Stacy Myers,
Willard Bean, Melissa Stevens
Scenic and Costume Crew . . . . . Daved Sepulveda, Melinda Eshbaugh

Special Thanks -- Kirk Saville, Janet Lassiter and the W.U. Music department

Lonely Goddess
by Howard Martin
(reprinted with permission)

Master Class is a study of the complex forces that combine to produce the unique personality and musicianship of Maria Callus. The play is built around a great paradox--the intense drive for perfection that brought her to the status of virtual divinity and the deep insecurity that constantly haunted her private dreams and ultimately destroyed her.
"What is it about Maria Callas" asks New York Times critic Anthony Tomasini. "that continues to mesmerize us 20 years after her death?" The answer lies perhaps in the curious mixture of greatness and weakness in her voice and also in the wideness of the gap between the public image and the private person. It is as if the private vulnerabilities of the supreme diva expressed themselves in the flawed greatness of her art. American soprano Beverly Bills summed it up this way: "She was an ordinary person with an extraordinary talent."

   It is a curious fact that the greatness of Maria Callas's voice was in part defined by its technical imperfections. Music critics have pointed out that even at its best her voice could at times sound strident, out-of-control, even ugly. As the demands of her performance schedule increased and the stress of her private life took its toll, these qualities became even more evident. Beverly Sills, for example, describes her as being "in poor voice" in a 1958 production of La Traviata at Covent Garden: "She knew it too. She didn't deceive herself about the state of her singing ... She was hell-bent on her own destruction and broke all the rules of singing."
    By the early 1970s, when she conducted her master classes, Callas's voice was almost gone. For the sake of her students, she occasionally sang to make a point, but, considering the ravaged state of her vocal instrument, made herself extremely vulnerable in doing so. In McNally's Version of the classes, she does no singing at all.
    What made Callas great, however, was the degree to which she was able to transcend the flaws in her voice even as her technical powers were fading. Because of her passionate attention to the dramatic intent of passionate attention to the dramatic intent of the opera, the depth of her emotional connection with the characters, and the vitality of her interpretation of the language of the text, she was able to attain a sublime artistry. On stage and in recording, her magnetism was unparalleled.
    As Tomasini writes: "To a listener in the throes of a Callas recording all other sopranos can seem like pale substitutes. For a soprano to take on Norma or Tosca after Callas is like an actor taking on Stanley Kowalski after Brando."
   Alongside the intriguing paradoxes of her art are the equally mysterious paradoxes of her personal life. In her prime, she was one of the most acclaimed artists in the world. As reigning queen of the operatic stage, she was the darling of the rich and famous, the object of adoration by millions of fans, a legend in her own time. In death, she has been venerated as few other twentieth-century artists have been. To mark the twentieth anniversary of her death, an exhibition in her honor was opened at La Scala, Milan; a street was named after her in Paris; and an eternal flame ignited in her memory in Greece.La Scala, Milan; a street was named after her in Paris; and an eternal flame ignited in her memory in Greece.
   Callas's private life, however, often stood in marked and painful contrast to her public image. She began her career as a shy and diffident teenager, chunky in build and awkward in movement and, while she eventually transformed herself into a sleekly glamorous celebrity, she never overcame her adolescent feelings of inadequacy. These feelings, rarely exposed, were both cause and reflection of the multiple tragedies of her life--her bitter and unresolved conflict with her mother, the breakdown of the voice, the collapse of her first marriage, the loss of Aristotle Onassis, and finally her death at the age of 53. In the end, the goddess died alone.