By Ruth Ross
When Katrina Ferguson marches onto the Parsippany Playhouse stage and peers out at the audience, it is immediately apparent that someone VERY IMPORTANT has arrived. That SOMEBODY is La Divina, the famous opera star Maria Callas, who has come to conduct one of her now-legendary classes for budding opera students at the Julliard School of Music wherein she will teach them how to achieve stardom. This is the premise of Terrence McNally’s 1995 Tony Award-winning play, Master Class performed by the Women's Theater Company through October 6.
Talking to the audience as though we are students and berating three young people actually brave enough to show off their talent and be critiqued, Ferguson treats us to an evening of reminiscences—not all pleasant—of Callas’s childhood in wartime Greece, her marital and sexual relationships, her operatic successes and failures, and her theories about what it takes to be not just a singer, but a successful interpreter of the music. To Callas, operatic singing is a lifetime’s work in a sacred place. It demands “domination, collaboration and assets,” she says.
“You must be willing to subjugate yourself to music,” Callas intones as she terrorizes Sophie da Palma (right), whom she constantly interrupts, calls by the wrong name and criticizes because she doesn’t have a “look.” As the young woman attempts an aria from La Sonnambula, Callas, without even singing a note, shows her how to pronounce the words correctly and project the character’s feelings. Ferguson speaks the lyrics with such feeling that one would swear she had sung them.
Likewise, she takes her second "victim," conceited tenor Tony Candolino, to task for just wanting to be just a “singer,” as he tackles "Recondita Armona" from Puccini’s Tosca. It's a pleasure to watch the young tenor convey the young singer's taking the diva's advice and growing as a performer before our very eyes. And finally, there’s feisty Sharon Graham, incongruously dressed in a red ball gown at 10 AM, who sings the letter aria from Verdi’s Macbeth, and who likewise protests, “I’m not an actress; I’m just a singer,” much to Madame Callas’ dismay. It’s clear La Divina has her work cut out for her if she is to turn these callow youths into stars.
“Poof! I’m invisible,” Ferguson's Callas tells us and her students numerous times, but that sure isn’t the case in this production! Under Barbara Krajkowski's sensitive direction, Katrina Ferguson is Maria Callas, a diva in the grand style, who dominates the stage and commands the audience’s attention every minute in this very demanding role. Caustic yet wryly funny, she is a force to be reckoned with.
The only weakness in Ferguson's performance lies in the delivery of her interior “dialogues” with a vulgar and very coarse Ari (her lover Aristotle Onassis) and her much-older husband, the wealthy industrialist Battista Meneghini. Both monologues and the movement from voice to voice are delivered too quickly to elicit much sympathy for the character, and so she remains mostly a terror—albeit a knowledgeable one. Ferguson does, however, lay bare the source of her character's concerns about appearance, since she was once, as Ari once called her, a “fat, ugly, greasy Greek freak” with thick glasses who morphed into a regal-looking, svelte performer. Given our own culture's obsession with weight and looks, her recollections are especially poignant.
Fine support comes from Jill Cappucino as the quivering Sophie (top), Chris Sierra as the conceited and rather dim Tony (right), and Elise Brancheau (above left) as spirited Sharon. All three have beautiful voices and manage to convey very well the effect Madame Callas has on their delivery of the feelings behind the music. Brancheau's ringing voice really shakes the rafters of the little black box theater! Amanda Zook as accompanist Manny Weinstock and Laura Petrucelli as the morose stagehand provide able support in limited roles.
Warren Helm’s musical coordination really showcases the young singers’ voices; Jonathan Wentz’s set transports us to a Juilliard stage, and Nick Downham’s lighting adjusts to the whims of this diva/teacher. Joan Ludwig’s costumes are appropriate for the characters, especially Ferguson’s all-black pants ensemble slashed by a bright red scarf; this Callas is no shrinking violet, even in her decline.
Upon losing her voice, Maria Callas was ignominiously fired by Milan’s famed La Scala opera house, abandoned by her lover for a younger, more beautiful woman (Camelot's queen, Jacqueline Kennedy) and relegated to giving master classes for aspiring opera students. Sounds like quite a come-down, doesn’t it? But Katrina Ferguson, on stage all the time—talking, talking, talking, to the audience, to the students, to herself—gives us a peek into the soul of this difficult artist and lets us see just what it takes to become a star. You don’t have to be familiar with or even love opera to appreciate this show or this production, for Master Class transcends music to tell us something about life, and we all need to know about that!
Master Class will be performed at the Parsippany Playhouse, 1130 Knoll Road, Lake Hiawatha, weekends through October 6. Tickets are $25 and $20 for seniors. For information and tickets, go online to www.women'stheater.org or call the box office at 973.316.3033 or e-mail info@womenstheater.org .
