Master Class review, Vaudeville Theatre

Tyne Daly isn't a natural Maria Callas. The dark haired cop from Cagney and Lacey is as inelegant as Callas was svelte, her face too neat for Callas' strong and oversized features, and she can't sing. Callas herself wasn't singing by the time she was holding master classes at the Juillard School in New York, so that bit doesn't matter. Strangely, neither does the rest of it. All disbelief is suspended as soon as Daly opens her mouth and cuts her first student down to size.

Fine Daly

This trick is that the Master Class is for us, the audience, and as such it is illuminating, moving and a brilliant listen. The first half suffers for too much talking and not enough music, but none of that matters by the end of this elegant production.


Aided by soprano, Naomi O'Connell and tenor, Garrett Sorenson, the Diva draws us into a world of high notes and high drama. She even sings along now and again. This is a woman whose own life was as tragic as anything seen on stage. Callas lost half her body weight; she lost her heart to the brutal billionaire Aristotle Onasis who constantly and publicly humiliated her;  and just when she should have been consolidating her career, she lost her voice. All of that is somehow conveyed by Tyne Daly who excels at both comic and musical timing.  The script is crisp, funny and unsentimental, using Callas' innate sense of story to provide evocative insights to the music - a trip into the composer's heads and her own.

In conclusion: If you love, or even like, opera, this American production will make you laugh and think,  and the high notes will raise the hairs at the back of your neck. If you don't get opera, it will feel too long and too lovey.

References
Buy tickets, Vaudeville Theatre