A master class in the world of opera marvel Maria Callas

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This was published 6 years ago

A master class in the world of opera marvel Maria Callas

By Clive O'Connell
Updated

THEATRE
MASTER CLASS ★★★★


Andrew Kay, Kings Head Theatre, London
Southbank Theatre
Until January 27

Amanda Muggleton has been playing one-time opera marvel Maria Callas on-and-off for 20 years, bringing controlled bravura to the central role in Terrence McNally's play that amounts to an extended monologue.

Controlled bravura: Amanda Muggleton as Maria Callas in <i>Master Class</i>.

Controlled bravura: Amanda Muggleton as Maria Callas in Master Class.Credit: Kate Ferguson

Based on real-life when the soprano held 23 classes at the Julliard School over six months in 1971-72, the action revolves around two passages where the interchanges stop as Callas sinks back into memories of public triumph and personal disaster, both points in the drama where her recordings of arias from Bellini's La sonnambula and Verdi's Macbeth illustrate the singer's extraordinary interpretative and technical skills.

In exposing Callas' brilliance, there's precious little concentration given to the physical demands of the craft, pretty much the whole tutelary content focusing on emotional responsiveness as sopranos Sophie de Palma (Kala Gare) and Sharon Graham (Jessica Boyd), with tenor Anthony Candolino (Rocco Speranza) for macho relief, try to follow their teacher's idiosyncratic and uninhibited direction.

All three singers face impossible situations as Callas veers from abuse to encouragement of a sort, for the most part inflicting on them the sort of treatment that would have had the Julliard faculty asking for their money back. For de Palma, attempting one of Callas' finest achievements in Amina's Ah! non credea from the Bellini work, the instruction is intense, forcing a consideration of every syllable and gesture; much the same applies to Graham's essay at the Letter Scene from Verdi's take on Shakespeare where the student has no hope of emulating the diva's inspired interpretation.

But these lessons function as detours from the main thrust of McNally's focus, just as Muggleton's strutting, posing and grande dame oral affectations serve mainly to distract. We all have our own ideas of Callas as singer and actress, but this characterisation veers towards the over-drawn with a fair amount of audience interaction as we fill in for Julliard student-spectators.

Nevertheless, those pivotal moments when Muggleton/Callas is spotlit and live performances from the early `50s come over the Lawler Studio's sound-system are gruelling to watch. Riding over Bellini's elegant melody-spinning, Muggleton hurtles into a revealing dialogue that contrasts foul-mouthed aggression from Callas' high-profile lover, Aristotle Onassis, with the singer's desperation for marriage and children. Later, the soprano's dereliction of her utterly decent husband, Giovanni Meneghini, is underpinned by Verdi's concentrated expression of marital intensity.

After the play ends, Muggleton gives her cast members the chance to sing en clair to Dobbs Frank's repetiteur-style accompaniment. Puccini scores well as Gare presents a self-effacing O mio babbino caro and Speranza zestfully accounts for Nessun dorma. But Boyd takes post-performance honours with the Queen of the Night's second aria from Mozart's The Magic Flute: dangerous and transparent music, suggestive of Callas' unquenchable fire.

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