Master Class

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Master Class is a play by Terrence McNally, with incidental music by Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini, and Vincenzo Bellini.

At its core is diva Maria Callas, a glamorous, commanding, larger-than-life, caustic, and surprisingly drop-dead funny teacher of a "master class" in operatic singing. Alternately dismayed and impressed by the students who parade before her, she retreats into both public recollections and private musings about the glories of her own career and life, including her younger years as an ugly duckling, the fierce hatred of her rivals, the unforgiving press that savaged her early performances, her triumphs at La Scala, and her affair with Aristotle Onassis, culminating in a heartbreaking monolgue about the sacrifices we must make in the name of art.

The play originally was staged by the Philadelphia Theatre Company and the Mark Taper Forum. After twelve previews, the Broadway production, directed by Leonard Foglia, opened on November 5, 1995 at the John Golden Theatre, where it ran for 598 performances. The original cast included Zoe Caldwell, Audra McDonald, Karen Kay Cody, David Loud, and Jay Hunter Morris. Dixie Carter and Patti Lupone subsequently replaced Caldwell as Callas and Alaine Rodin replaced McDonald later in the run.