Gina Chiarelli (photo: David Cooper)
La Divina
by Chris Lane
Maria Callas instructs her students not to act, but to become a character, and to truly feel their emotions. Gina Chiarelli, who portrays the celebrated diva in Master Class, does exactly this in a powerful and compelling performance.
Master Class, which is being put on by the Arts Club at their Granville Island Stage, is a theatrical take on a master class that Callas gave at Juilliard in the '60s. The audience at Granville Island becomes the audience of the class as she brings out the best in her young students, but not without a few tears along the way. The play is not so much about her lessons on opera; rather, it is about her, and about what she has to say about art and performance. She tells her students to go deeper than just reading and singing, in order to find the meaning in the text and to express those emotions for the audience.
