Master Class is an extraordinary insight into the life and loves of Maria Callas, the iconic opera singer whose turbulent private life and fiery temperament were as astonishing as her formidable talents. Inspired by her master classes of the early 70s, this is a riveting, hilarious and intensely moving portrayal of the sacrifice and heartache behind the artist, the diva and the legend.
With an electrifying performance from Tyne Daly as the infamous Maria Callas, Terrence McNally's Tony Award-winning play Master Class was a smash-hit on Broadway and now arrives in the West End for a strictly limited season.
Multi award-winning Tyne Daly is best known on television for her portrayal of Detective Mary Beth Lacey in Cagney and Lacey, for which she received four Emmy Awards. For her roles as Maxine Gray in Judging Amy and Alice Henderson in Christy she received two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama. For the former she also won Golden Globe Award.
Her many Broadway credits include Rose in Gypsy for which she won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical, Arkadina in The Seagull and Rabbit Hole. Tyne Daley’s film credits include The Enforcer, Dirty Harry, John and Mary and Telefon.
Tyne Daly in Master Class. Photo credit: Johan Persson
Date: 8 February 2012
The West End transfer of Terrence McNally’s 1995 Broadway play Master Class opened last night (7 February 2012, previews from 21 January) at the Vaudeville Theatre.
Master Class, which is based on the classes Callas gave in the early 1970s at the Juilliard School in New York, is directed by Stephen Wadsworth. The production continues its limited West End season until 28 April 2012.
“Daly here confirms… what she proved many moons ago ... She’s a real, and considerable, stage actress. She’s marvellous, in fact, as Callas… acting probably her greatest role, Verdi’s Lady Macbeth, through her tutorial … She, and we, are even more rewarded by the turnarounds in Naomi O'Connell’s tremendous performance… and by man mountain tenor Garrett Sorenson’s tumultuous lyrical eruption as Cavaradossi … The major weakness in Stephen Wadsworth’s production is the way she has to belt through her offstage fall-outs with her ancient husband… while battling against her own recordings … These scenes, designed by Thomas Lynch, are shadowy lit interludes at La Scala, which magically invades the functional Juilliard lecture hall … The 'set-up' of the master class is tediously and self-consciously done … But there are moments, too, when Daly, undercutting the pretence that the show is not about her… grumbles threateningly under her own lines… and, yes, send a thrill of delight pulsing through your veins.”
“I don’t think anyone could claim that… Master Class is a great play. It’s sentimental, full of dramatic and verbal clichés … Yet there is no denying that it offers a guiltily enjoyable night at the theatre … The main attraction is Tyne Daly … She offers one of those high-definition Broadway star performances that deftly mingle comedy and pathos … Her Callas takes to the stage as though it was her personal fiefdom … The result is mesmerising and often wonderfully funny … Callas is the egocentric diva of popular legend, glorying in her own myth… and taking sadistic delight in insulting her terrified pupils … And she is superb in the scenes in which she circles the young singers like a sleek panther keeping a watchful eye on its lunch … There is strong support in Stephen Wadsworth’s slick Broadway production from Garrett Sorenson… whose voice moves even the hypercritical Callas, and Naomi O'Connell and Dianne Pilkington as the terrified female students … This may be a flawed and even dishonest play, but it is a highly entertaining one, and Tyne Daly richly deserves her standing ovation.”
“The debased, cliche-ridden version of Callas… has as much in common with Dame Edna as with the great artist which this 'event' or 'entertainment'… travesties … Tyne Daly is astonishingly good at what she is asked to do for this show … She has as much "presence" as the Grand Canyon … McNally's trite idea is to present Callas as Quintessence of Diva … In Stephen Wadsworth's slick production, Daly times the airy, throwaway put-downs and the mock-puzzled 'bitchy, moi?' double takes to perfection. And she is able, simply through charged statuesque gesture, to suggest the singing genius that we hear on scratchy recordings of Callas in some of her great roles. There is one electrifying sequence where the diva's taunts goad a young soprano into a thrilling retaliatory rendering of an aria by Verdi's Lady Macbeth and as the pair orbit each other, you see how the psychodynamic of the master class relationship could be tacked non-naturalistically. In general, though, you learn more about the nature of teaching and passing on a gift in Dirty Dancing.”
"A magisterial and classy performance from Tyne Daly … Prepare to be dazzled … Daly is imperious and sometimes woundingly funny as this queenly, flawed, swaggering artist … McNally's play is less majestic. It's a clever yet rather vulgar and overly sentimental homage to the great diva … Callas apart, the characters are much too thinly drawn. But it works as a star vehicle … With a succession of hopeful, nervous students … You don't need to be familiar with the numerous ins and outs of Callas's career to appreciate the pathos … We hear Callas's generous, incisive tones. It is the voice of the original recordings; Daly barely has to sing at all, yet we are convinced that somewhere inside her the ashes of a once blazing talent continue to smoulder. Full of little interactions with the audience and moments we're expected to answer with applause, Master Class is the most knowing, bombastic kind of Broadway show. But, crucially, Stephen Wadsworth's production gives Daly room to captivate, and she consistently does just that."
“Even if Tyne Daly's performance far surpasses the one we saw from Patti LuPone in 1997, the play still offers a caricature of what we know of the real Callas … McNally presents us with… a monomaniac diva … I'm surprised that McNally… should now turn her into a parodic sacred monster. Her observations about art are generally trite… one is more stunned by the apercu's vulgarity than its accuracy. And, although McNally seeks to evoke the sadness of Callas's private life, it strikes me as a cardinal sin to use authentic recordings of her singing as background to a severe attack of the flashbacks … Against the odds, Daly gives the evening the touch of class that McNally's script lacks … It's only fair to add that Garrett Sorenson and Naomi O'Connell, as two of Callas's victims, deliver their respective arias with real passion, and that Stephen Wadsworth has staged the piece with elegant simplicity … I only wish we could have seen Daly's famous performance as Rose in Sondheim's Gypsy, which must have been a match for her formidable talents.”
Libby Purves The Times ★★★★
“Great artists in decline make gripping drama and, let’s face it, butts for unkind mirth. Every chance for both is seized with riveting energy by Tyne Daly … What McNally is doing, and Stephen Wadsworth directing in this fine production from Broadway, is using her chequered life and passionate musicality to explore general truths … Jeremy Cohen at the piano offers a lovely understated set of facial expressions, and Gerard Carey as a gum-chewing, casual stagehand neatly represents the outside world … Jolts of real operatic passion surface whenever the music carries Callas through fictional emotion into real remembered griefs ... Naomi O'Connell does a spectacular Lady Macbeth, hurling it virtually through gritted teeth as Callas torments her; and the classroom fades again into black-and-golden memory as Daly passionately, brilliantly evokes triumph, paranoia, betrayals and regrets. Her last pupil just hates her for it. That’s life: the onward roll of the generations."
Something – quite a lot, actually – about Terrence McNally’s 1995 play about Maria Callas giving a New York master class sticks in the craw, but much of Tyne Daly’s performance sticks in the mind.
Despite wearing a dead raccoon of a hairpiece that makes her look from behind like Davy Crockett with good vocal portamento but bad physical deportment, Daly here confirms in this Manhattan Theatre Club revival via Broadway what she proved many moons ago as Mama Rose in Gypsy: she’s a real, and considerable, stage actress.
She’s marvellous, in fact, as Callas, miles better than Patti LuPone in the premiere (who played the diva merely as a bitchy drag act), mining the tragedy of her own life while acting probably her greatest role, Verdi’s Lady Macbeth, through her tutorial.
She gives sideways looks that kill, a noble nose framed in flyaway mascara and arched brows that suggest an uncanny facial resemblance. Her one message to the students, repeated ad infinitum ad nauseam in banal variations, is “feel” it, don’t just sing it.
Give us a stab of pain, not just the note. Well, yes, no-one’s going to disagree with that. And to illustrate it dramatically, the three pupils all start unaccountably stupid and are transformed in a trice. Dianne Pilkington is told to get “a look” as quickly as possible and does so, weepily, as Callas acts out Bellini’s tragic sleepwalker.
She, and we, are even more rewarded by the turnarounds in Naomi O'Connell’s tremendous performance of the letter scene in Macbeth – the mezzo having stormed off in a confused huff in her unsuitably showy but cheap-looking mauve dress (“Are you going somewhere after this?”); and by man mountain tenor Garrett Sorenson’s tumultuous lyrical eruption as Cavaradossi.
All the while, Daly is goading, emoting, internally combusting and crying, but without resorting to camp or hysterics. When required to deliver a put-down, she does so with the scything, half-serious malevolence of, well, Jackie Mason.
The major weakness in Stephen Wadsworth’s production is the way she has to belt through her offstage fall-outs with her ancient husband, and then the foul-mouthed Aristotle Onassis, while battling against her own recordings: a different sort of biographical play would have suited that over-compressed material, and this performance, much better.
These scenes, designed by Thomas Lynch, are shadowy lit interludes at La Scala, which magically invades the functional Juilliard lecture hall – where we, the audience, are seated as students; there’s a slice of red curtain, a golden pillar, a hint of the glittering circles (not the full Monty as we had in the original).
The “set-up” of the master class is tediously and self-consciously done with the incursions of the gauche stagehand (Gerard Carey) and the joshing of the very good accompanist (Jeremy Cohen).
But there are moments, too, when Daly, undercutting the pretence that the show is not about her (“No applause – we’re here to work”), grumbles threateningly under her own lines, and hints at dark cavities of yesteryear in vanished triumphs that make the evening come alive and, yes, send a thrill of delight pulsing through your veins.
What an amazing story - fantastic music!I love Maria she is stunning!
Did you the infamous superyacht The Christina O is currently moored at South Quay, Canary Wharf. Guests can take a tour on board and travel back in time to glamorous life of Maria, hear her story and see her memorabilia. It is a must see for all Callas lovers. Tickets can be purchased online at ticketmaster or else call down to the booking station on board the yacht. It was an amzaing tour and talks of her relationship with the yacht and Ari! - Laura Phillips
09 Mar 12
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I have no idea why this play is not packed out night after night. When there are so few non musicals on it is a pleasure to watch something a bit different and Tyne Daly was just amazing in the role. - jjay
01 Mar 12
Only paid £2.50 thru a papering club and still felt robbed-DIRE! - Tabby
28 Feb 12
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Play is a bit his and miss but Tyne Daley is just awesome! Don't miss seeing class act on stage. Not many of those in the West End at present. - Gman490
27 Feb 12
I first saw Masterclass when Patti Lupone starred as Callas. The run ended early and I always felt there was more to this play than we got to see in that production.
I saw Tyne Daly in the part last night and quite simply she is excellent. The play may have its flaws but her portrayal of Callas is compelling and often very funny. - Paul Wallis
25 Feb 12
If the play's the thing, then there's really not much to this. Art should connect with the emotions, not merely be technically proficient. That's the lesson Callas teaches her three students, but not apparently Terrence McNally, who wrote this play (effectively a monologue by Callas). This is neither a particularly dramatic play, nor a great biographical character piece, such as the marvellous "End of the Rainbow," in which Tracie Bennett absolutely definitively showstoppingly brought Judy Garland back from the dead. Here Callas remains beyond our reach, and we learn about art what we already know. There is a caveat though: Tyne Daly is commanding, her stark facemask-from-the-Mikado appearance cracking to reveal a passion for art and life, casting a mesmeric spell. Jeremy Cohen, as the pianist, is utterly charming, and Naomi O’Connell makes an impression with her contrary nature (she is the play's only obvious antagonist, taking Callas to task) and beautiful singing voice. - steveatplays
22 Feb 12
Rubbish play but oh what a performance.
Tyne Daly is the best! - coral
17 Feb 12
I saw it in Washington DC, then Saw it on Broadway, now saw it in London ... and it just keeps getting better and better! Brilliant and innovative performances of a brilliantly directed and (yes)written play. - Steve Bard
09 Feb 12
I do wonder if Mr Coveney was at the same theatre as I last night. What a lot of nonsense as usual. I'm certain that your reviews are more about wanting to be controversial than wanting to provide a service through your critiques. This is a superb production. Well designed. A tour de force performance by Tyne Daly. Yes - there could be more detail but it balances the potential content well without patronising the subject or romanticising it either. Ignore MC's comments and treat yourself to a Master Class of class acting and see this or you'll miss one of the highlights of proper theatre in the west end for some time. - Barry Honeycombe
08 Feb 12
Outstanding! Tyne Daly is sublime. A performance people will still be talking about in 50 years time. Finally the West End has some class! - Mr Hewitt
Opened 16 Apr 1870. Front re-constructed in 1890. 694 seats. Member of the Society of London Theatre. Each year there will be, from 1997, an Autumn to Spring Variety Season. The theatre is run by Max Weitzenhoffer.
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