I had forgotten how much I enjoy opera.

There is a feeling of coming almost full circle for me with Master Class, a play about Art, Opera and Divas. You see, when I was eight years old, (I will not impugn myself with giving you the year,) my parents introduced me to a Soprano named Joy McEntyre. She was helming an English language production of Puccini’s La Boheme and was looking for some children to sing in the chorus. I got an audition slot, went to the USU music department and belted out “Memory” from Cats at the top of my lungs (I did mention I was eight). I made it into the children’s chorus and began my short lived career of various “pants parts”, playing a boy urchin in this production and donning knickers again for the role a year later in the Italian remount. I’m sure I had seen opera before, well, light opera anyway, a local production of Pirates of Penzance, and some Gilbert & Sullivan albums had certainly rotated on my Fisher Price record player. But I had never felt opera as Puccini made me feel it. I had never experienced the soaring, empty chest feeling of joy and happiness and sorrow and humanity all rolled into one as I did when I first heard “O soave fanciulla”--“Oh gentile maiden”. It did something to my soul! And I had never met a Diva before. I wanted voice lessons! I was infatuated.

Adolescence and high school subculture and peer pressure super ceded my attraction to opera, there simply wasn’t enough time. It wasn’t until I was in college that I was able to work in opera again. One summer, I was hired as properties designer for Utah Festival Opera’s production of Pirates... and as assistant designer of I Pagliacci and Gianni Schicchi. The passion! The drama! The music! The backstabbing divas and the insanely jealous tenors! The tattling! The orchestra! The art!

Luckily, a decade later I have yet another opportunity to work in opera. When I heard SLAC was remounting Master Class with the incomparable Anne Cullimore Decker as Maria Callas and with (my favorite) David Mong again at the helm, I asked them to keep me in mind as stage manager. I knew I had no chance to audition as one of the students since my opera soprano days were long behind me (I’m really a mezzo/belter now) but I wanted to somehow be a part of it all. Thankfully, the stage management job came my way and here we are, mere days before opening, in a play that echoes all I know about opera while teaching me more about it than I ever dreamed.

It has been a pretty smooth rehearsal and tech process. Keven Myhre again has designed a fantastic set. It’s classy and a clean contrast to the one we just saw in The Caretaker. Jim Craig’s lights are always amazing, a character unto themselves. Brenda Van Der Wiel’s costumes complete the characters without overpowering them. David Evanoff and Maria Callas conspired on the highly theatrical sound design. And David Mong… This is my second opportunity to Stage Manage for him. Though I have only acted under Mr. Mong’s direction in staged readings he has quickly become one of my favorite and most trusted directors. I hope to work with him again soon.

The actors are a joy to watch and work with. I have adored Josh Martin in his stage debut and am happy to have him in the backstage cubby with me as well. Paul Dorgan is a consummate professional and a wealth of knowledge. Stefanie Londino and Natalie Blackman are lovely to watch and listen to in their naturalistic and honest performances as the two female students. And I will never forget the first time I heard Shane Haag sing. That empty chest, exalted feeling of hearing such a powerful sound, at a singular, beautiful moment in time. There were tears. These pure moments of art, defining and elevating the human condition. And Ms. Anne Cullimore Decker! Oh! I have loved watching her process, research, dedication. How she inhabits the role. Shine a light on her in wig and scarf and Anne disappears, Maria remains. It’s going to be phenomenal.

I am lucky to have been involved in opera from so many sides; as an audience member, an actress (or actor, I guess) and behind the scenes as a designer, stage manager or on deck crew. And I have learned that there is nothing like someone who sings every note as if she feels it, honestly, properly researched, a soliloquy that bursts out in song because mere words aren’t enough. Maria Callas the Diva did that. Come to Master Class and see exactly what I mean. It will be good for you and your soul. I mean that.

I think this is a great time to do MASTER CLASS, an opportune time. At it’s heart, MASTER CLASS is a play about the value of art. As the economy struggles and everybody tightens up and battens down, once again, and as always, art is the ‘poor cousin’ to utility bills, groceries, mortgages and insurance premiums (ahem). This is always the case, but it’s important to remind ourselves of the honest value of Art to the human animal. To those that make it and those that experience it. It sustains us, elevates us, offers context and solace, and an altar to Praise and Lament, as the poet Rilke called the divine polarity of human expression. We need it. We don’t often even sense that, but, as Maria Callas states in the play: “The sun will not fall down from the sky if there are no more Traviatas. The world can and will go on without us but I have to think that we have made this world a better place. That we have left it richer, wiser than had we not chosen the way of art.”

Yep, I’ve been asked to”blog”. I’ll say from the outset, I don’t quite get what this is all about, but, being an absolute sport…. I’ll play.

I’m going to rat myself out. In the spring of 1994, I was part of The Gathering in Big Fork, Montana. It was a new play workshop and reading series produced by a couple of friends of mine. I was still living in Seattle and it was a quick gig that paid, and on beautiful Flat Head Lake besides. I was there as an actor. One of the plays that was being read was a thing called MASTER CLASS. Terrence McNally was there, and Zoe Cauldwell was reading Maria Callas. It was one of the first public readings of the play. There were a couple of people I knew from Seattle in it, including Karen Kay Cody who ended up performing in the New York production, as Sophie. I saw the reading, walked outside and ran into the other friend, who shall remain nameless, but had played Manny the accompanist in the reading. I had to confess to him I didn’t get, wasn’t at all sure it worked, and really, did anyone care about an opera diva that much? He also was not sure he was sold on the play. Several years later we met up at a new play festival in California and did the usual “what’s up” queries. Turns out we were both about to direct the play we had damned with faint praise in Big Fork, he at the Denver Theatre Center and me at Salt Lake Acting Company. We congratulated each other on our unerring instincts and both had a slice of humble pie, shared an ironic chuckle. And now, I’m directing it for the second time.

I still know almost nothing about opera. I have to admit I’ve never completely shed the notion that it’s a little silly, which is ridiculous to say as I’ve still never seen an opera. I blame it on the Bugs Bunny cartoon where Elmer Fudd is dressed in drag as Brunhilde singing “K-will dah rabbit, K-will dah rabbit” to Wagner. Popular culture has not been kind to the art form, and I’m shotglass deep and given to baser instincts. But I will say this, Maria Callas has become a very compelling character for me. She did not completely disagree with my kneejerk assessment of opera, either. Her career was a corrective on the merely decorous tendencies in the form. She rejected pretty costumes, pretty music, preening peacocks bathing in light and self-congratulation. She was a revolution. And it cost her dearly. Cost. That column is tallied up with great impact in this play. I have an image of Callas near the end of her life, donated to my conciousness through my readings. She is hold up in her Paris apartment, having become a fragile recluse, and bathed in the light of a television set that was ALWAYS on. Her favorite programs were westerns and detective stories. Even her infrequent guests had to talk over the din of the omnipresent set. Lonely. Lonely. Lonely. The woman that virtually invented the expression “jet set”, who yachted with Churchill, the Rainers, movie stars and glittering heads of state…. the mistress of one of the richest men in the world, the prima-diva…. Cost. I think I understand so much more clearly this time how high the stakes were for her when these master classes occurred. Her career was essentially over, her voice shredded, the love of her life married to Jackie Kennedy but still perversely pursuing her and her confidence at its lowest ebb. She was a woman looking back, attempting to teach students only looking forward. Young, hopeful animals with no knowledge of the costs that may lay ahead. No wonder McNally grabbed the moment! Could it be any more loaded? Any more heartbreaking and funny in turn? Talk about your intrinsic dramatic conflict. So, although I am still a philistine when it comes to opera, and still a stranger in a strange land, I have come to hold Ms.Callas in deep regard. Had I known her I would have undoubtedly wanted to save her from the dark tide, as so many people who knew and loved her tried to do. At least through this play we raise a glass to her now.

We’re about to enter our tech week, as I write this. I’m not going to talk about the workings of our rehearsals, because that’s still very much family business, but I will say I have, once again, thoroughly enjoyed working with Anne Cullimore Decker as the Lady. I could probably write reems about that, but I won’t. Master Paul Dorgan, you have quite simply saved our bacon and poured grace through our days. And our “students”. Bless them all. They have worked their butts off with intelligence and complete devotion. And, truly, Arika Schockmel, our stage manager… you are the hub, you are the light. Josh Martin, we will make you a star, dude. And the designers, Keven, Jim, Brenda and Dave…. all you do is make concrete the world. Nothing much, eh? And SLAC, the Mother Ship, nice to be back. Allora!