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Feb 13, 2024 · Inspired by the legendary masterclasses held at Julliard, five-time Tony Award-winning playwright Terrence McNally unbars the doors to the ultimate course in what it takes to dominate the arts. Based on the woman whose talent reigns unparalleled in the opera world, McNally creates a stark image of the Callas classroom as she carefully critiques ...
- Author Biography
- Plot Summary
- Characters
- Themes
- Style
- Historical Context
- Critical Overview
- Criticism
- Sources
- Further Reading
Terrence McNally was born in Saint Petersburg, Florida, on November 3, 1939, the son of Hubert Arthur and Dorothy Rapp McNally. McNally grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas, where he was introduced to the theater at the age of seven when his parents took him to see Annie Get Your Gun. McNally graduated from high school in 1956, after which he attended ...
Act 1
As Master Class begins, the house lights are still up. An accompanist seats himself at a piano, after which Maria enters, wearing expensive clothes. She announces that there is to be no applause, because everyone is there to work. She makes some remarks about music as a discipline and says that the singer must serve the composer. In the first of many anecdotes about her life, she tells how, during World War II, she used to walk to the conservatory and back every day, even though she had no pr...
Act 2
Maria speaks about the sacredness of her art. She notices that there is a bouquet of flowers for her on the piano, but she does not seem to appreciate them. The next student to come out is another young soprano, Sharon Graham, who is to sing one of Lady Macbeth’s arias from Verdi’s opera Macbeth. Maria tells her to go off the stage and re-enter in character. She also mentions that Sharon’s gown, although gorgeous, is inappropriate for the occasion. Sharon goes off and does not reappear. Maria...
Accompanist
Manny the accompanist rehearses with Maria the day before the master class, but she cannot remember him since he is now wearing a different sweater. She tells him that he does not have a distinctive look and that he must acquire one. Manny is an admirer of Maria and does not react badly to her rather rough treatment of him in act one. In act two, he wins her praise.
Anthony Candolini
SeeTenor
Sophie de Palma
SeeFirst Soprano
Creating Art
Although the play touches on many of the main events of Maria Callas’s life, it is not in essence a biographical portrait. Rather, it is an exploration of the nature of artistic creation, as applied to operatic singing and acting. Maria makes clear that art is serious business that cannot be done by half measures; it demands total commitment on the part of the singer/actress. Being an opera singer can never be an easy career; the singer must give everything to the demands of her craft. This m...
TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY
1. Near the end of the play, Sharon says to Maria, “I don’t like you.” What is your reaction to Maria? Do you like her or dislike her? Is she a good teacher or is her manner too harsh? 2. Describe a moment in theater, opera, musical, or film in which you have been emotionally moved by the performance of a particular actor or singer. Who was the performer, and how did he or she create the effect that moved you? 3. Music has power to touch the emotions in ways that the spoken word cannot. Why s...
Structure
Both acts share the same basic structure. In its essentials, act one consists of Maria’s interaction with the first student, the soprano Sophie de Palma, followed by a long monologue in which Maria recalls events from her life. In the original New York production, Zoe Caldwell, who played Maria, stood alone in the light on a darkened stage for this reminiscence, which includes her relationship with Aristotle Onassis, during which he asks her to bear his child, and one of her great triumphs at...
The Leading Role
Since the play is virtually a one-woman show, with the other characters brought in mostly as foils so that Maria can reveal her artistic personality and her views about singing and acting, the success of the production rests on the ability of the actress who plays Maria to capture the imperious, querulous, and tragic essence of the character. Not only this, she also needs to impersonate convincingly various figures from Maria’s life, such as her first husband, her lover Onassis, and her teach...
Music
Obviously, in a play about a legendary opera diva, music is of central importance. Not only are two Callas recordings played, but the tenor and soprano sing arias on stage (the latter does not complete hers). The centrality of singing, and the tragedy of Callas, whose voice deserted her at a comparatively young age, is forcefully made in the only line of music that Maria herself sings in the entire play. This comes midway through act two, and it is the opening of Lady Macbeth’s aria, after sh...
Maria Callas
Maria Callas was by common consent the greatest dramatic soprano of her generation, excelling in the Italian bel cantorepertoire. She had a mesmerizing stage presence, and although many regarded her voice as flawed, she could communicate intensity and emotion as no other soprano could. Her personal life was scarcely less dramatic than the operatic roles she played, and there were well publicized incidents involving her legendary fiery temperament, her feuds with opera managements, her rivalri...
Callas’s Master Classes at Juilliard
Callas conducted twenty-three two-hour opera master classes at the Juilliard School of Music in New York from October 1971 to March 1972. She had not sung in public for six years, and her voice was not the great instrument it once had been. Doing the master classes was a way of overcoming her terror of performing by incorporating singing as part of her teaching. There were twenty-five students in the master class and a paying audience that included some of the great names in opera. Callas did...
Master Class was a resounding commercial success. It ran from November 1995 to June 1997 on Broadway, recording over six hundred performances. By 1997, there also had been about forty productions abroad, including those in Argentina, Estonia, Germany, Israel, Italy, Hungary, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, and Turkey. Zoe Caldwell received high praise f...
Bryan Aubrey
Aubrey holds a Ph.D. in English and has published many articles on twentieth-century literature. In this essay, Aubrey discusses some outstanding moments in Maria Callas’s singing that have been captured on audio and videotape and how these reflect the themes of Master Class. He also discusses the changes Callas brought to opera singing. Playwright McNally is a lifelong fan of Maria Callas. He first heard her when he was a fifteen-year-old high school student in Texas in 1953. The recording w...
Cary M. Mazer
In the following essay, Mazer examines how the character of Maria Callas in Master Class evinces the paradoxical nature of the diva as performer and self. [Text Not Available] [Text Not Available] [Text Not Available] [Text Not Available] [Text Not Available] [Text Not Available] [Text Not Available] Source : Cary M. Mazer, “Master Class and the Paradox of the Diva,” in Terrence McNally: A Casebook, edited by Toby Silverman Zinman, Garland Publishing, 1997, pp. 165-80.
Ardoin, John, “Callas and the Juilliard Master Classes,” in Terrence McNally: A Casebook, edited by Toby Silverman Zinman, Garland Publishing, Inc., 1997, pp. 157-63. ———, Callas at Juilliard: The Master Classes, Amadeus Press, 1998, p. 39. ———, The Callas Legacy: A Biography of a Career, rev. ed., Charles Scribner’s Sons, p. 210. Canby, Vincent, “...
Brustein, Robert, “Master Class,” in the New Republic, February 5, 1996, pp. 27-28. Christianssen, Rupert, Prima Donna, Pimlico, 1995, pp. 266-98. Kroll, Jack, “Master Class,” in Newsweek, November 13, 1995, p. 85. Torrens, James S., “Master Class,” in America, February 17, 1996, p. 30. Zinman, Toby Silverman, ed., Terrence McNally: A Casebook, Gar...
- Broadway World
MASTER CLASS Comes to Ensemble Theatre in June
Ensemble Theatre will present Terrence McNally’s Tony award-winning play, Master Class, offering an explosive homage to the legendary opera ...
3 days ago
- Broadway World
PROUD OUT LOUD Comes to Theatre West in June
For its Third Annual Proud Out Loud celebration, Theatre West will present a weekend of programming honoring the achievements of five-time T...
5 days ago
Join Theatre Aspen and the Aspen Music Festival and School for their fourth summer collaboration MASTER CLASS by Terrence McNally. The story about the opera diva Maria Callas, a glamorous, commanding, larger-than-life, caustic, and surprisingly funny pedagogue is holding a singing master class.
Compassion!, with Lane and John Glover, which examines the relationships of eight gay men; it won McNally his second Tony Award; and Master Class (1995), a character study of legendary opera soprano Maria Callas, which starred Zoe Caldwell and won the Tony Award for Best Play, McNally's fourth.
Nov 20, 2021 · Master class. by. McNally, Terrence. Publication date. 1996. Topics. Callas, Maria, 1923-1977 -- Drama, Singing -- Instruction and study -- Drama, Sopranos (Singers) -- Drama. Publisher. New York : Dramatists Play Service.
Mar 30, 2020 · Master Class. Opening Date: November 5th, 1995 in New York City at the John Golden Theatre. Awards: Four Tony Awards including Best Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play....
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