Sylvia Sass will be Maria Callas in "Master Class"

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SANTIAGO.- "It was not easy to convince Sylvia Sass to assume the role of a woman whose memory disturbed her own career and life as a woman", says company director of L'Eternel Ephémère, Thierry Pillon, commenting on his decision to stage "Master Class" by Terrence McNally, with the Hungarian soprano as protagonist. He refers to the fact that Sass herself had an openly know private master class with Callas and aswell that after her debut in Aix-en-Provence ( "La Traviata"), critics named her the successor to the Greek artist.

The planning process has already been initiated and the functions are planned for 2010, starting in Pézenas, the medieval city where Molière was born, and following in Nantes and Paris. It will coincide with the 33rd  anniversary of the Callas’s death, which occurred precisely in Paris on September 16 of 1977.

Pillon explains: "Often, during long and fascinating conversations about our work and art with Sylvia we remembered Maria Callas. Sometimes I witnessed emotional and humble confidences appealing to me as a man of theater, impassioned by the discovery of the human psyche… It is a troubling issue, the similarity, the identification with her  or the denial. It is about the mirror often shown to you without realizing. Struggling to escape the model. To be no more than just yourself, despite the offensive words that were written about it… How can you cope with being so young and already be compared with the diva of divas, which you admire without having ever thought about wanting to imitate her ...? That is what happened to Sylvia Sass. How can you achieve your full potential as an artist when you have been compared with a certainly hurt Callas for beeing “replaced”by another one according to the press? A Callas who treats the young soprano at the beginning in an arrogant and provocative way —‘So you're the new Callas…’— and then becomes attentive, generous and protective".

"Callas wanted Sylvia Sass to avoid the same pitfalls of her own dramatic commitment, what she quickly discovered during a private work session at her home… She talks about it in her latest interview shortly before she died. She understood very well that the artist belonged, more than any other, to her family, her race… Sylvia Sass always carried that memory with her, as a rich and heavy treasure".

Thierry Pillon said that after many conversations, Sylvia Sass understood "the deep sense of my request and the message that I wanted to transmit to the public, through her, through the incarnated words of Callas. And so, this other diva let convince herself… and I am infinitely grateful".

The play, the author and the glasses

The artistic team for this new production of "Master Class" includes Thierry Pillon as director and in the role of tenor; Cécile Favereau and Jean-Luc Taillefert for scenery and costumes. Sylvia Sass will be Maria Callas; Aurélia Delescluse, Annina, and Laurence Malherbe embodies Sylvia Sass herself. Meguy Djakeli as accompanying pianist.

The play of Terrence McNally was brought to live in 1972, the year in which Callas gave her last master class. Among the listeners of the Juilliard School was the at that time very young author, future opera critic for the New York Times, taking notes. 20 years went by before he decided to revise his notes and create this play which can be seen as a great lesson in singing, but also as a lesson in life.

The premiere was in 1996 and was so successful that he received the Tony Award. Great actresses like Zoe Caldwell, Patti LuPone, Faye Dunaway, Fanny Ardant and Norma Aleandro interpreted the role. In Chile, in 1998, Ana Maria Palma won the rights for the interpretación. The staging of 2010 will be the first time for an opera singer to assume the leading role.

For Sylvia Sass this project is a huge undertaking: "I work passionately on the texts. It is almost a monologue. The idea of Thierry Pillon is brilliant: that the whole play is a kind of vision. For years I kept inside the gestures of Maria Callas, but I did not want to imitate her. One interesting thing, however, is how she put on her glasses, how that limited view built a barrier between two worlds, the real one and the world of dreams. Anyway, we still have a long way to go", she says.