Terrence McNally’s 1995 play, Master Class, is guaranteed to excite the inner diva of any virtuoso actress. Few have the wherewithal to bring to life the ultimate diva: La Divina – Maria Callas. Several Australian actresses have enjoyed great success in the role, with Zoe Caldwell picking up a Tony Award in the play’s inaugural season in New York and Amanda Muggleton winning the 2002 Helpmann Award for Best Actress in a Play. Maria Mercedes’ brilliant performance in Left Bauer Productions’ incarnation is surely destined to attract similar recognition.

Inspired by a series of voice classes given by Maria Callas at the Juilliard School of Music in 1971, the play explores the inner life of Callas both as an artist and a woman as she instructs, berates, insults and encourages her “victims”.

The theatre space becomes an auditorium and members of the audience become the master class spectators, who in turn are charmed, instructed, appealed to and insulted. As Callas, Maria Mercedes enters an almost bare stage dressed in black and wearing a gold necklace and signature large glasses. A piano, with a genial pianist at the ready, a young soprano nervously waiting in the wings and an uncomfortable chair share the acting space. The house lights are up and initiate a series of complaints and imperious demands at the most inopportune moments as she sees to the “details”: lights, a cushion, a footstool, water and more water.

The narcissistic elements of her personality are seen in the way she treats the young singers. The first half of the play revolves around Sophie De Palma’s attempts to sing the sleepwalking aria from La Sonnambula. Or it would revolve around her if Callas would actually let her sing it. Only one note is uttered before she is interrupted. “You weren’t living the music!” This provides a key to the core of the play. What made Callas a living legend (apart from a spectacular voice) was her utter immersion in the roles she played. The intertwining of life and art, Love and Music from Tosca, is played out as she relives her career and thinks about the pain and humiliation of her relationships.

As Sophie De Palma, Georgia Wilkinson is permitted to sing some of her aria very beautifully. After interval, Robert Barbero, as the young tenor Anthony Condolino, who rather stereotypically thinks that the voice is everything, and Anna Louise Cole as the feisty Sharon Graham have an opportunity to present themselves as young singers of significant talent. Cole’s Letter Scene from Macbeth is dark hued and forceful. All three singers appeared to gain strength and vitality from Mercedes as an inspiring Callas and as a dynamic actress of great emotional range.

Mercedes’ affinity with certain elements of Callas’s Greek heritage, as well as her being an actress and singer herself, makes for a compelling performance. From sly humour to bitchy putdowns, from refined artistry to crude outbursts of despair as she laments her failed relationship with a totally unappreciative Onassis. It is like watching a Greek tragedy unfold. Despite all of Maria Callas’s less endearing characteristics, Maria Mercedes’ portrayal evokes admiration and pity. At some points of the most heightened tension the crescendo of recorded music, with Callas singing the featured arias, overwhelms the spoken, and sometimes shouted, soliloquies so that some information is lost. But this was a relatively minor problem and, in fact, contributed to a sense of emotional chaos in the final climax. The one line actually sung by Mercedes had huge impact.

Imaginative lighting throughout was a huge contributor to the creation of dramatic tension. Snapping out of the dark inner despair of her final soliloquy, the lights rise and Callas transforms herself once again into La Divina. The play comes full circle with a final address to the audience. She thanks her pianist Manny (as well she might since he put in such a sterling performance), announces “Well, that’s that” and briskly makes her exit.

One of my most cherished and enduring memories of a first-rate theatrical tour-de-force is Amanda Muggleton’s performance in Master Class. This is another.

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Heather Leviston attended a performance of Master Class at Forty-five Downstairs on August 22, 2014.

Classic Melbourne looks forward to the staging of the play Master Class concerning the legendary diva Maria Callas, and invited Cameron Lukey to give us insight into his preparations for the play including the all-important casting of the central role …

I have always been fascinated by Maria Callas. By the voice, the drama and the myth. How did she lose her voice? How did she lose the weight? Did she really die of a broken heart or was she killed by her maid? And perhaps the most fascinating question; did she and Aristotle Onassis have a son? The rumours circling Callas exceed those of most movie stars, and amongst opera singers, her legend is unparalleled.

After producing Playing Rock Hudson together at the Malthouse theatre last year, Michele Bauer and I joined forces to establish Left Bauer Productions. For our first project, I pitched Terrence McNally’s Master Class, a play inspired by Callas’ 1971 Juilliard Master Classes.

Before moving to Australia, Bauer had worked in production for American opera companies such as the Metropolitan and Santa Fe. Here she is the production manager for Victorian Opera. As a singer, I’ve spent several years singing in choruses for Opera Australia and as a principal artist for Oz Opera. Because of our shared background, I wanted to find a piece that combined opera and straight theatre. Master Class provides that rare opportunity.

While I was studying voice at university, Callas was often held up as an example of what not to do. Lose weight too fast and you’ll lose your voice, sacrifice tone too much for emotion and you’ll lose your voice. Callas was dangerous, which made her thrillingly unpredictable to her fans and worryingly inconsistent to her detractors.

McNally’s Callas is a formidable role to say the least. Vulnerable, volatile and funny, it’s a challenge that has attracted many of the world’s finest actresses (including Meryl Streep for an upcoming film adaptation). It’s also a fiendishly difficult role to cast. So for our production, the first in Melbourne since 2001, who could play Callas?

Serendipity provided the answer in Maria Mercedes, star of musicals such as Nine, Cats, Sunset Boulevard and Love Never Dies. I had heard through the grapevine that Mercedes had found a dream role in Callas after performing in a series of master classes with American acting teacher Elizabeth Kemp just months earlier.

The similarities between Callas and Mercedes are remarkable. Both were daughters of Greek immigrants with fathers named George, and both grew up with a desire to belong that led to the pursuit of their musical talents. Mercedes’ casting is also unique in that of all the high profile actresses who have played the role (the list includes Zoe Calwell, Patti LuPone, Faye Dunaway, Fanny Ardant, Tyne Daly, Robyn Nevin and Amanda Muggleton to name just a few), I could find no other who shares Callas’ Greek heritage.

During our initial conversations, it seemed clear Mercedes had an innate almost unconscious understanding of Callas. For example, when working with Elizabeth on a scene depicting Callas’ relationship with Onassis and her rumoured abortion, she instinctively chose to wear a kimono, unaware of Callas’ performances in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.

Mercedes’ passion and empathy for Callas is palpable, describing the role as the greatest challenge of her prolific career. What makes McNally’s impression so thrilling is that it focuses on Callas’ character rather than the events that defined her. It’s not a typical biography in that way, and by giving us his own idea of her, he allows an actress to do the same.

Directed by Daniel Lammin, the focus of rehearsals has been for Mercedes to find her version of Callas, a characterization driven by an exploration of her motivations and psychology rather than her voice or mannerisms, and by an implicit trust in McNally’s text. What I have personally found so fascinating about this piece is that it’s a perfect example of how music can illuminate a narrative. The progression of McNally’s musical choices perfectly mirror Callas’ journey.

Mercedes is joined by three young singers, Georgia Wilkinson, Robert Barbaro and Anna Louise Cole, all working on their first play. Legendary Australian actress Zoe Caldwell, who originated the role of Callas on Broadway, described the play as a one woman show upon her first read through. Only in rehearsal with the singers did she realize how wrong her assessment had been. Along with McNally’s choice of music, the facets of Callas these singers expose provide a fully realized portrait that many comprehensive biographies could not. It’s an original and refreshing approach.

Ultimately our hope is for Master Class to provide Melbourne audiences with a unique and entertaining theatrical experience they’re unlikely to see elsewhere, and to honour Callas’ extraordinary artistry and the life that inspired and was driven by her passion.

Terrence McNally’s Master Class runs at fortyfivedownstairs from August 19 – 28. For bookings go to www.fortyfivedownstairs.com of call 03 9662 9966.

For more information of Left Bauer’s upcoming shows go to www.leftbauerproductions.com.