The Maria Callas of Terrence McNally\u2019s Tony-winning play \u201cMaster Class\u201d makes it clear to her Juilliard School students that an artist must suffer. \u201cIt\u2019s not a note we\u2019re after here,\u201d she tells them. \u201cIt\u2019s a stab of pain.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Sandy Campbell prepares to reprise her \u201cMaster Class\u201d starring role 10 years after first playing the renowned opera singer in another local production, she reflected on how her understanding of the complex Callas has grown.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe overall feeling that I remember, which has deepened this time around, is how often and how much she talks about the importance of art in general and the work,\u201d Campbell said. \u201cShe wasn\u2019t very forgiving of other opera singers who weren\u2019t \u2018artists.\u2019 She wanted her students to be artists.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was very hard on herself and so she was very hard on other people, because she felt like that\u2019s what she had to teach them, that you are giving everything. You can\u2019t stand there and just sing a song.\u201d<\/p>\n
Campbell is returning to the role of the American-born Greek soprano in a co-production of \u201cMaster Class\u201d from Roustabouts Theatre Co. and Scripps Ranch Theatre. It was a decade ago at the since-closed ion theatre in Hillcrest that Campbell first portrayed Callas.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted a chance to do it again because it\u2019s such a challenge,\u201d said Campbell, who\u2019ll be directed by Roustabouts\u2019 artistic director and co-founder Phil Johnson this time around. \u201cI\u2019ve decided to think of it as a whole new project and use what I learned from before, but not compare the two.\u201d<\/p>\n
McNally\u2019s play fictionalizes a master class taught by Callas in the early 1970s in which she presides over three young vocal students: two sopranos, Sophie (played by Abigail Grace Allwein) and Sharon (Sara Frondoni), and a tenor, Anthony (Ben Read).<\/p>\n
\u201cTerrence (McNally) gives us places where her true passion and her reason for being come out so nicely,\u201d said Campbell. \u201cThere are some students who inspire her too, particularly the tenor. She actually gets into coaching the last student (Sharon) because she can see some promise in her.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sharon character is not only the most gifted of the three students in Callas\u2019 class, but also the one who will fight back when she sees her teacher being too stern, even tyrannical. This co-production\u2019s Sharon, Frondoni, is a graduate of La Costa Canyon High School and of the University of Southern California\u2019s Thornton School of Music. A classical vocalist who performs with the San Diego Symphony Festival Chorus, Frondoni last appeared in an area theatrical production in Coronado Playhouse\u2019s \u201cNine, The Musical\u201d in the summer of 2024.<\/p>\n
Frondoni said she wasn\u2019t familiar with \u201cMaster Class\u201d before auditioning for the part of Sharon, but \u201cI fell in love with the script immediately and had a connection to it. I think about all of the experiences I had when I was at the Thornton School of Music and what it\u2019s like to be a voice student. All the pressures that has and also the amazing opportunities it brings, and how important the student-teacher relationship can be.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I\u2019ve been every single character in this play at some point, trying to be in a master class and what that means. This play reflects all of that experience. Sharon sticks up for herself, and she is Maria\u2019s challenger. It\u2019s fun to be able to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Campbell met Frondoni three years ago when Frondoni was starring in Old Town Temecula Community Theater\u2019s production of \u201cThe Sound of Music\u201d and Campbell\u2019s spouse, Danny, was directing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always knew she had a lovely voice,\u201d Sandy Campbell said, \u201cbut I didn\u2019t know she had that kind of voice. She\u2019s singing that really hard Lady Macbeth Verdi aria (in \u2018Master Class\u2019) and she sounds great.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaster Class\u201d is based on actual classes that Maria Callas taught to Juilliard School of Music students in New York between October 1971 and March 1972. Audio recordings of some of these sessions exist, Campbell said.<\/p>\n
Campbell, an experienced performer in both theater and musical theater and recently a headliner in Cygnet Theatre\u2019s production of \u201cFollies,\u201d didn\u2019t have a \u201cMaria Callas\u201d in her past, but she does acknowledge a mentor.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy most consistent voice teacher was Diana Ruggiero, who\u2019s now up in L.A.,\u201d she said. \u201cShe came from the opera world. She was never as demanding as Maria Callas, but sometimes when I hear Maria talking I think of Diana. She had a lot of the same sorts of things to say about what a great singer is.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was our dramaturg and my Italian coach when we did this before (at ion theatre). So I\u2019m thinking of her a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaster Class\u201d won the Tony Award for Best Play in 1996. Also taking home Tonys that year were Zoe Caldwell, who portrayed Callas, and Audra McDonald, who played Sharon. McNally\u2019s play divided critics and opera scholars, however. The real-life Maria Callas was a complicated woman whose performing and personal life inspired strong opinions. For all her acclaim, the temperamental Callas parted ways publicly with La Scala, maintained a fierce rivalry with fellow star soprano Renata Tebaldi, and, best known to many, had a rocky relationship with Aristotle Onassis when both were married to others. She reportedly had a child by Onassis that died soon after being born, after having a couple more miscarriages.<\/p>\n
McNally\u2019s play goes beyond Callas teaching, even bullying, her students. Along the way and particularly in two lengthy monologues, Callas is immersed in her own story \u2014 her triumphs and her trials.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe really did have a very hard life,\u201d recounted Campbell. \u201cShe had a mother who was not interested in her except to push her out and make her work. Her sister was the \u2018pretty one\u2019 who got all the attention. But she had this fantastic voice, and this was where her happiness was: working at the conservatory in Greece when she was 13.\u201d<\/p>\n
Callas\u2019 life later was missing the same thing it missed in her youth, Campbell said. \u201cShe didn\u2019t have a lot of love. She was always looking for love.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope people can understand that she often thought of herself as a victim, too, that her life was terrible, that she didn\u2019t always get the best treatment from a lot of the opera companies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Campbell\u2019s takeaway, as she undertakes her second portrayal of Callas, is of the woman not as a victim but as a perfectionist. \u201cShe was a diva,\u201d said Campbell, \u201cand she had certain things that she wanted and needed, and she was quite demanding of other people and of herself. But I think in real life it was all because she wanted to make sure those (opera) stories were told correctly and in the best way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Master Class\u2019<\/p>\n
When: Preview, at 7:30 p.m. Friday. Opens Saturday and runs through Dec. 14. 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays<\/p>\n
Where: Legler Benbough Theatre, 783 Avenue of Nations, Allied International University, San Diego<\/p>\n
Tickets: $30-$52<\/p>\n
Phone: 858-395-0573<\/p>\n