NOVEMBER 1997 ----------------------------In this issue------------------------------------------ Special Master Class Issue Voices: Directors Notes, A Diary of Gil Osborn while she was directing the Canadian Premiere The Play's the Thing: Terrence McNally CyberTheatre Monthly: Internet Sites related to Terrence McNally and Maria Callas Rubin's Corner: A reprint of La Divina (Zoe Caldwell as Maria Callas) and A Diva Returns to Broadway (Patti LuPone takes over the role) Enter Laughing: Pass Up the Opera, Start Hating it Now TRE Diva Trivia, Theatre News ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Voices: Director's Notes Director's Notes Gil Osborn recently rejoined the forum after returning to her old stomping grounds at the Canadian National Arts Centre where she directed the Canadian Premiere of Master Class. Ever wonder what goes through a directors mind at the earliest stages of such a production? Here's your chance to find out with a peek at her production diary: March 1997 So we finally hear word from the agent that Faye Dunaway will not be touring in either Ottawa or Winnipeg, so we can have the rights to Master Class. Now, who’s going to direct it? Steven and I have a long chat on the phone, the end result of which is that he wants me to direct it! I told him I’d get back to him in a few days. I need to think about this. After all, I’ve heard of Maria Callas (who hasn’t) but opera has never been my thing. I love the play, obviously or I wouldn’t have chosen it for the season, but I’m not sure it’s in my blood. Finally decided to do it after re-reading it. It’s not about Maria Callas or opera, it’s about an artist and a woman. And I guess I can empathize with that. But I’ll need a LOT of help with the opera component. Made calls to Jeannette Lambermont and Wayne Strongman about singers. All I know is that they MUST be true opera, not musical theatre. It wouldn’t sound right at all if we don’t go that route. And Callas would hate it. April 1997 Who the hell can we get to play La Divina? We’ve been kicking names around for days and no one feels right. Martha Henry is directing at that time. We put out some feelers on the Broadway scene, but no one wants to do it after Zoe’s fabulous performance. And the ones that do are hopeless. (Joanne Worley? Helen Reddy? My god!) This woman is a diva but with a sense of humor. Tough. May 1997 Louise Guinand has said yes for lights. YAY! And Sue Benson is thinking about set and costumes. We’ve started to track down Teresa Stratas for Maria. She’d be perfect if her health and temperment are up to it. The audition notices have gone out for the students and the accompanist. We’ll see what we get. Benson says yes for set and costumes. YAY! Rob MacAlear picked up the CDs of Callas at Juilliard plus 2 wonderful videos of her while he was in New York. What an amazing performer she was. And how hard it must have been for her to give it all up. I’m beginning to intensely dislike Onassis. Auditions in Ottawa, Toronto and Winnipeg….what a trip. Three totally unsuitable people in Ottawa, but at least I got my feet wet. Susan sat in with me and I got my first lesson in the difference between a lyric and a dramatic soprano. Kate read in as Callas and was wonderful, pity she’s too young and too big. Toronto was a full day, thank god Jeannette sat in with me. I did my usual and worked a little with each one, which seemed to surprise them. Opera auditions are totally different from theatre auditions as far as I can gather. Found a couple of possibles, but it’s so hard to know if they can ACT. I’m revising my ideas and thinking that if I can get the voice and the look right I’ll just teach them how to act. Stavroula read in as Callas and was gorgeous but too young and a bit soft. Winnipeg was a gas. Now I’ve got the hang of the different voices I’m finding that I can tell almost immediately who will work and who won’t. It’s so nice to learn something new. I found both my sopranos and my accompanist. What an opera town it is! Wonderful talent. But still no Tony Tightpants. Got extremely drunk afterwards with the General Manager, it was great fun. Still no Maria! Teresa finally turned us down. Apparently she hates Callas… Had a brainwave and told Victoria to see what Jackie Burroughs is up to. June 1997 Up and down…Jackie says yes but wants to talk to me first. And Sue Benson called and cancelled out, she’s too busy for her health. Called John Pennoyer and he’s up for it. YAY! I love Sue, but John is an old friend. It’ll be a very different feel to the set, but I think it’ll work. He wants to ignore the classical stuff and let Louise do the shifts. I like it. And I hated that La Scala slide effect anyway. Talked to Jackie and we’re both sounding good together. I’ll fly up and see her in August. Arranged for her to go to COC rehearsals so that she can get a feel for the divas. Now I have Maria I’ve started work. Spent the last few days with the CDS on and keep watching the videos. What happened next? Quotes of the Month Best Wishes to Gil Osborn, who's production of the Canadian Premiere of Masterclass opens tonight: @>--->--- @>--->--- @>--->--- @>--->--- @>--->--- @>--->--- @>--->--- @>--->--- @>--->--- @>--->--- @>--->--- @>--->--- @>--->--- @>--->--- @>--->--- @>--->--- @>--->--- @>--->--- @>--->--- @>--->--- @>--->--- @>--->--- @>--->--- @>--->--- --Marie, Theatre & Performing Arts, October 23, 1997 "Wait one minute, there's 4 months missing!" Glad you noticed. Gil makes the Theatre Pros bulletin board her online home, so drop in and ask her for a play-by-play of the actual rehearsal and opening... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Play's the Thing: Terrence McNally’s Master Class: A Portrait of Maria Callas Over the past few months I focused on the genre of biographical/historical plays. I discussed the various problems of writing a play based, or loosely based, on the life of a well-known figure in history. If done well, the audience accepts the play without question. Done poorly, the audience will make note of every detail they find incorrect. The hard part for the playwright is to determine what part of a person’s life will be covered, how much detail will be included and if the storyline permits enough conflict to make an interesting night of theatre for the audience. While writing Master Class, Terrence McNally had to make those same choices. A close examination of the play will provide answers to the questions posed. Terrence McNally, writer of such plays as Love! Valour! Compassion! and A Perfect Ganesh, turned to one of his passions, his love of opera, for the play Master Class. Instead of trying to present the life history of Maria Callas, McNally places the audience right in the midst of a class taught by her and quickly takes them on an exploration of the soul of a diva. Linda Winer wrote in her November 1995 Newsday article, "A Diva's World: Grand and Bold / McNally's view of Maria Callas" that: Based loosely on classes the late soprano held at Julliard in 1971, the play is more a vehicle - more a performance piece - than his further-reaching ensemble triumph, "Love! Valour! Compassion!" that won the Tony last season. Yet, in many ways, this may be his most personal work, a statement from this doggedly undidactic writer about why we have artists, what it takes to keep them alive and why it matters so much that they flourish. Robert Brustein, critic for The New Republic, states in his February 1996 review, "As I probably don't need to tell you by now, Master Class is a compilation of McNally's fan notes about the famous singing artist Maria Callas. And if what attracts you to opera is the private life of the diva rather than her vocal gifts, then you will enjoy this biographical sketch a lot more than I did. Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy it." McNally uses the class lessons to give Callas a chance to explore her private life as she drifts in and out of personal anecdotes about her own struggle to study opera. By narrowing the scope of the play to a series of classes, McNally is able to focus on what made Callas be Callas. Her voice gone, career behind her and her tragic love affair with Onassis over, Callas still steps on the stage as the feisty, spirited, free-thinking artist that she was known to be. Details of her life are stripped to a minimum. Opera, not her personal life, is the focus of the play. Callas, in the play, calls her students "victims" as a joke, but she turns them into helpless victims, like flies trapped in the diva’s web. She berates her pupils for their lack of style, ability and dedication to the training process. "Callas' dictums about apparel, like so much of the knowledge she has to impart, are utterly narcissistic: She refuses to be upstaged or cheapened by her students. This class, much to our delight, is really about learning how to be a diva." wrote Jan Stuart in the November 1995 Newsday article titled, "ON THEATER / Indomitable, Lolling Divas Looking Swell." Earlier in the play Callas and the soprano are discussing the feeling behind the words sung: MARIA: I want to hear everything in that one sound. "Oh!" Can you give me that? SOPRANO: I’ll try. MARIA: Try isn’t good enough. Do. The theatre isn’t about trying. People don’t leave their homes to watch us try. They come to see us do. Callas offers no false praise for the pupils. She insists on perfect diction. "Diction, diction!" she exclaims, "Bite into those consonants. I want to hear them." Callas may have lost her voice, but in this classroom she shows she never lost her passion. Teaching these opera classes stirs up her great passion allowing Callas to talk about her life, full of joy and pain. Only then does McNally give a hint at the depths of sorrow that lie just under the surface. Robert Brustein’s review noted that: Clearly McNally is not trying to demonstrate what a great mentor Callas was at Julliard- -though reports suggest her teaching was more helpful than appears here--so much as to create affectionate satire out of her fake humility and imperious manner. Only later, at the conclusion of the first act, does he get around to dramatizing the personal wounds that lie festering beneath the skin of all the rampant egotism. For all the fire and passion of Callas, does the play offer any kind of conflict? Does Callas come to terms with anything that will change her? Is the story driven to a climatic end, or does it just stay on a horizontal plane of one experience to another? At the end of the play I thought to myself, "Nice story. Makes me want to know more about Callas." But a "nice story" does not always make for good theatre. I wanted something more. I wanted conflict, tension, risk-taking. Therein may lie the hardest task for the playwright. If these classes never posed any tension or conflict, what makes them interesting to the audience? Could McNally have imposed a bit of self-realization on Callas? Could she have been at risk of being seen as the scarred remains of an over-indulgent life instead of the tough, egocentric prima donna that she presented publicly? Robert Brustein’s review of Master Class noted the same problems: The trouble with focusing on a single flamboyant character is that it robs the action of purpose, creating a situation where there's very little at stake. . . .As a tribute to Callas, the play has some value as the kind of homage that one performance art can pay to another. As a piece of theater, it is essentially an aromatic bouquet for a star-struck, celebrity-bit culture. Master Class employs all the stratagems of the stage except its capacity to evoke danger, surprise and reality. One of the difficulties I encountered in reading the play was my lack of understanding of opera. McNally is able to use the voice of Callas to define some of the terms and to translate some key passages into English, but there were still things that only a fan of opera would fully grasp. I may not have understood the world of opera but, because of the personality of Callas, I was able to understand the desire that drove her. It is the same desire that drives any artist. When she speaks of the theatre there is a reverence in her voice. She tells the Accompanist that, "The stage, the theatre are sacred places, oh, yes. I lose my sense of humor the moment I walk through the stage door." As a director and actor (as well as all the other theatre hats I wear), in that brief moment, I understood the heart of Callas. I know that reverence first hand. For that moment we were both divas. Caprice Woosley's Master Collection of Links to Maria Callas and Terrence McNally on the Internet in CyberTheatre Monthly --- Caprice Woosley is currently pursuing her BFA in theater (directing and playwriting), after 25 years working in and around the theater. She is a produced playwright, actress, and amateur dramaturg who enjoys researching plays. She is a host in the Writing Forum where she co-hosts a Writing Discussion Group. She also hosted "Shakespeare Unplugged" and "Murder and Mayhem" in the Theatre Forum. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CyberTheatre Monthly Internet Sites Related to Terrence McNally and Maria Callas Callas Divina - The Official Maria Callas Web Site - Il Sito Ufficiale... PRESENTS:. Click here for a Maria Callas audio example ADM FILMS DEPARTMENT S.r.L.. While visiting the La Scala Theatrical Museum, accompanied by the voices of famous opera singers, the son of an ardent admirer of opera music, savours some of .. Pasolini, Maria Callas, Drawings Maria Callas Home Page Maria Callas - Classical Insites "She shone for all too brief a while in the world of opera, like a vivid flame attracting the attention of the whole world, and she had a strange magic which was all her own. Her dramatic, self-induced metamorphosis from a hefty, homely opera singer into slender, sexy diva gave her followers the feeling that they, too, could alter themselves and their destinies. Maria Callas The set begins with the complete 1953 'test' session in Florence of the aria 'Non mi dir' from Don Giovanni, sung through twice, with the studio announcements heard before each performance. Also, for the first time on CD, the mono version of the Sleepwalking Scene from Verdi's Macbeth in which Lady Macbeth's voice can be heard receding towards the end - an effect absent from the stereo. CALLAS/MY DAUGHTER MARIA Callas, Evangelia, in collaboration with Lawrence G. Blochman MY DAUGHTER MARIA CALLAS One of the most unusual biographies of this series, this work was written by Maria Callas' Brief synopsis of the opera; Callas and the role; sound file from a performance of the role; ... Serendipity: Maria Callas Chorus and Orchestra of the American Opera Society. Chorus and Orchestra of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Master Class by Terrence McNally MASTER CLASS REVIEW " This means "Master Class" is an almost impossible writing challenge. When Callas' arias soar while Caldwell recites the lyrics, the contrast is embarrassing. Another Story: Patti LuPone as Maria Callas. The Lisbon Traviata Review by Richard Gist - February 21, 1997Photo: Timmy Ray James as Stephen and Tim Marrone as Mike. James manages to take it about as far as McNally's script will allow while still keeping it from sailing out of control and into pathos. Terrence McNally Maria, Not Callas by Matthew Gurewitsch Terrence McNally's Master Class deliberately plays fast and loose with historical fact in search of artistic truth by Matthew Gurewitsch Curious Things . FIRING PASSION At London's Covent Garden in 1964 Maria Callas and Tito Gobbi were singing together the Act II duet. Maria was so concentrated on the scene that .. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rubin's Corner: La Divina Zoe Caldwell is not tall... ...she is not Greek and she is not even a singer. When she played the role of Maria Callas, the soprano who spent a decade at La Scala in Milian, your were sure that she was all three. The character in the play Master Class is a diva whose risk taking has caught up with her. The glorious voice has long since let her and she is let with the lessons she picked up during her amazing meteoric career. It was her musical counseling that she imparted in a series at the Juillard in 1971 and 1972 which is the basis of play, Master Class. The author of Master Class, Terrence McNally, who transposed the event into a complex and compelling exploration of the creative spirit. The Caldwell Callas that resulted, like The Lisbon Traviata, is a stylistic extension of McNally’s operatic obsession. The first draft of the play was a one women show. When there was no interest in the show, he rewrote it and brought out the interdependence of the students that are critiqued in the play. Immediately a number of actresses became interested in the play. Three gifted sopranos, a tenor, an accompanist and an apathetic stagehand are now involved in the interplay between the characters. The diva brays, flays, browbeats, weeps, hallucinates during the two hour running time. It is interesting that when Zoe Caldwell is not involved in theatre, she takes part in master classes for acting. Medea is a common denominator for the two divas, Caldwell and Callas. Callas, played the part offstage in her high profile affair with Aristotle Onassis. She gave Onassis her magic just as Medea did to Jason. In a way Callas was a Greek tragedy. Caldwell has said that her performance in Master Class is based on Medea. Fortunately, domesticity has spared Caldwell the lower depths of divadom. The thing that stunned her the most about Callas was what a supreme musician she was and how she gave it away in the name of love. When her run in Master Class was over, Callwell directed her third Medea. She and her husband then began to travel all over the world. It turned out the Calwell was a diva who allowed herself a happy ending. Another Diva: Reprint of Rubin's Corner, July 1996, announcing Patti Lupone's return tot he role: The DIVA Arrives on Broadway Patti LuPone came back to Broadway on July 2nd when she took over the part of Maria Callas in Terrence McNally's Master Class. She took over the role that earned Zoe Caldwell the Tony Award in May. Ms. LuPone has a powerful, unconventional voice and an emotional style of acting. Like the diva in the play she wears her heart on her sleeve. The role in "Master Class" has completed a healing process. Ms. LuPone graduate from the Juilliard School of Drama and the John Houseman Acting Company. In 1979, she met Andrew Lloyd Webber who cast her in her first staring roll as Evita. The problem with this part was that she had to sing this difficult score eight times a week. In 1985 she went to London to play the role of Fantine in the original London production of Les Misérables. This was followed by the Lincoln Center revival of Anything Goes and a TV show called Life Goes On. It was following theses roles that her career and ego ran into a problem. She was hired by Webber to play the role of Norma Desmond in his production of Sunset Boulevard. Her contract called for her to originate the plum role in London, and play it again in New York. But, those plans ended when Webber decided that Glenn Close, who had opened in the Los Angles production, would be his New York Norma. Ms. LuPone felt that the bottom had dropped out of her career. Many of her fans felt that her emotional stability was threatened. It cost the Really Useful Company a million dollars to buy out her New York contract. Even a one woman show, which closed after 53 performances, could not restore the confidence of this actress. Now, Ms. LuPone becomes, the Divine One. And this show could not have come at a more operatic moment in her life. Although she has only signed on for a New York run, she had let it be known that it would fine with her if the producers would like her to play the role in London. Zoe Callwell is not interested in doing the show again. It would mean so much to Ms. LuPone, if she could one again be a diva in New York and London. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Enter Laughing Pass up the opera, start hating it now!!!!! It musta been my lucky day. Picture it: Phone rings. "Hello?". "Hey, Wayne, it’s me. Guess what… I won two tickets to the San Francisco Opera tonight. Ya wanna go?" You’ve all been there! Trapped, like a deer in headlights, you just can’t think of a good excuse fast enough. The only thing that popped into my mind was, "Gee, I’d love to, but, but, I, uh, I um, I’m allergic to mezzo-sopranos." Next thing you know, I’m sitting in the audience of the SF Opera’s production of Carmen, watching chubby people, dressed in hideously outlandish costumes, sing in a foreign language at decibels capable of breaking glass. Yee haw, we’re having some fun now. At intermission I leaned over to my friend and said, "I know why Don Jose let Carmen escape… he knew he’d be in prison for two months and wouldn’t have to watch the rest of this stupid opera!". I admit it! I stand nekked to the world. I don’t like opera! (Wayne removes rotten tomato from face… "All right, who threw that!?" ). I find any art form that can focus an entire song on a character who never appears (La Traviata’s Piquillo) just a tad bit too tedious for me. Or consider the aria "Quella del velo" from Don Carlo. It’s all about a veil, for Pete’s sake! Someone spare me from this boredom. Now before anyone gets all riled up, I must tell you I am certainly in the minority here. According to Opera America (a nationally respected non-profit organization), well over 7 million North Americans went to the opera last year. That’s a bundle of culturally literate folks plunking down a hefty price for tickets to see big-boned, spear-and-Viking-helmet women prance around the stage singing in German. I’d bet my eye-teeth that these same folk are at home Sunday evenings watching Married With Children. I have found a way, however, to have fun at the opera. It’s not for the squeamish though, and certainly not for the timid. I like to tick-off opera groupies. Here are some of the proven methods to have opera fans shoot daggers at you from their eyes. Walk up to someone before the opera and ask them, "Don’t you just love Wagner?" (Make sure you pronounce that W like a W rather than the pretentious V). Ask someone, "Do you think there are any phantoms in the house tonight?". If someone asks you, "What’s your favorite opera?", always reply, "Phantom of the Opera". Poke the lady next to you and ask her to wake you when the fat lady sings. Loud enough for people to hear, keep muttering, "Is this whole thing in I-Talien? When are they gonna sing in English?" Ask someone, "Is ‘Don’ Giovanni’s first name?". If you’re seeing the Barber of Seville, you must always remark, "Hey, didn’t they get that song from that Bug’s Bunny cartoon?". Wonder out loud, "Why do they call them "castrati"?" When you’re using the restroom, exclaim, "So this is why they call it ‘ soap operas’ when you wash your hands." Tell people in the lobby, "I thought we were going to the Oprah show". I was all but willing to cast opera aside. OK, no biggie, you can’t like everything, right? Hey, opera ain’t for everyone, right? Then, that blasted phone rang again, "Wayne, I remembered how much fun you had at the last opera we went to, I got two more tickets for tonight, pick me up at 7". Headlights again. Paralyzed Wayne mutters, "Uh, uh, … yeah, okay". Rats, trapped again. This opera is something called, "The Ring of the Nibelung". I ran to the library to study up. The first thing I come upon says, "Originally a stage festival lasting for three days and a preliminary evening!". Banging my head against the wall, I decide to pack a tent and a sleeping bag. "Opera … nature’s own tranquilizer!". Wayne Disher: Born and raised on the beaches of California (in Santa Cruz, to be exact), lived a 'white trash' childhood. Miraculously, developed a passion for culture, and attended UCLA in hopes of becoming the next Barrymore. I settled on a degree in English. Later I obtained a Master's degree in Library and Information Science from San Jose State University, and now serve the public as 'Super-Librarian' for the City of San Jose. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRE Special Issue: Diva Trivia Match the heroine the Opera Amneris Madama Butterfly Violetta La Nozze di Figaro Rosina The Magic Flute Gilda Il Barbiere di Siviglia Nedda Otello Cho-Cho-San Das Rheingold Nannetta La Boheme Floria Die Walkure Brunnhilde Tosca Mimi Falstaff The Queen of the Night Rigoletto Countesa Almaviva Pagliacci Freia Aida Desdemona La Traviata -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1997, Mersinger Theatrical Services