Tyne Daly inhabits the fury, if not the sound of bigger-than-life coloratura, Maria Callas, in Terrence McNally's 1995 award-winning, Master Class. Under Stephen Wadsworth's direction, she delivers the complexity, the conceit and paranoia, and the passion of the legendary La Divina, who was adored for her theatricality as much as her singing.
Callas was the grande diva with the requisite ego, but in Master Class, her peak years are behind her. In a classroom at the Juilliard School, she faces three young opera hopefuls and prepares to critique their performances and instruct them about the diction, discipline, and courage needed to be a great artist. "It's all in the music. Listen to the music." Bluntly, she advises, "Don't take this personally but you don't have a look. You need presence."
The three opera hopefuls are played by Alexandra Silber, Garrett Sorenson and Sierra Boggess who are all talented but immature singers who pale in presence to Callas. Silber is awkward and nervous as Sophie DePalma, prepared to sing from La Sonnambula. Sierra Boggess as Sharon Graham enters with overblown confidence, expecting praise from Callas for her Lady Macbeth aria. At the end, she rejects Callas for what she has become, a self-indulgent diva who lost her voice.
Sorenson, as tenor Antonio Candolino, gets the highest praise from Callas for his aria from Tosca. His gender is an obvious influence, since Callas harbors resentments about her female colleagues like Joan Sutherland and Renata Scotto.
Daly illustrates the "presence" of Callas. She rules the stage. Your eyes don't leave her, the chin held high, a confident power strutting across the stage, the self-awareness, lightening flashes of attitude, and a sarcastic strain of humor. She is tactless with her pianist, Manny (Jeremy Cohen) who idolizes her and is dismissive with an unimpressed stagehand, Clinton Brandhagen. However, beneath the hauteur, there is still a restless insecurity and a lingering self image as "a fat, ugly Greek." She had to scramble for every advantage and was abused by opera directors and most of all, by Aristotle Onassis.
As fast as Callas turns to her students, she loses interest in their performances, letting their music lead her into memories of her own past performances. She weaves in her personal experiences with Giovanni Battista Meneghini, the husband she treated badly and Onassis, the crass lover who finally left her for someone younger and even more prestigious than the fading La Divina. Daly speaks Italian in two gripping soliloquies, and while her accent is not sharp, her interpretation is impressive.
Tyne Daly achieves a resemblance evocative of the opera star with Paul Huntley's Callas-length dark wig and a mask of stark theatrical makeup. Martin Pakledinaz dresses Daly in chic black with a bright scarf hooked into an expensive handbag. He gives Alexandra Silber a careless schoolgirl look, and Sierra Burgess is overdressed in a long purple gown.
The set by Thomas Lynch resembles an auditorium. When Callas fades into her reminiscences, the stage goes dark and David Lander's moody light focuses on the star. Through the dramatic darkness rings Maria Callas' recorded voice. "That's who I am. This voice," says Callas. McNally's play, while not an authoritative biography, is riveting with Tyne Daly's nuanced interpretation. Her pauses and stresses are on target. Daly proves again that she can play a TV earth mother/detective ("Cagey and Lacey"), a classic Broadway stage mother (Gypsy) and in a cabaret room she can deliver a touching interpretation of Buddy Holly's bouncy rock'n'roll hit, "Oh, Boy." She never fails to be compelling, honest and technically on target.
In the Manhattan Theatre Club's limited run at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, Daly delivers the first tour de force of the 2011-2012 seasons, setting the bar high for award time next spring.
