San Diego actress relishes return to ‘Master Class’ role 10 years later

The Maria Callas of Terrence McNally’s Tony-winning play “Master Class” makes it clear to her Juilliard School students that an artist must suffer. “It’s not a note we’re after here,” she tells them. “It’s a stab of pain.”

As Sandy Campbell prepares to reprise her “Master Class” starring role 10 years after first playing the renowned opera singer in another local production, she reflected on how her understanding of the complex Callas has grown.

“The overall feeling that I remember, which has deepened this time around, is how often and how much she talks about the importance of art in general and the work,” Campbell said. “She wasn’t very forgiving of other opera singers who weren’t ‘artists.’ She wanted her students to be artists.”

“She was very hard on herself and so she was very hard on other people, because she felt like that’s what she had to teach them, that you are giving everything. You can’t stand there and just sing a song.”

Campbell is returning to the role of the American-born Greek soprano in a co-production of “Master Class” from Roustabouts Theatre Co. and Scripps Ranch Theatre. It was a decade ago at the since-closed ion theatre in Hillcrest that Campbell first portrayed Callas.

“I wanted a chance to do it again because it’s such a challenge,” said Campbell, who’ll be directed by Roustabouts’ artistic director and co-founder Phil Johnson this time around. “I’ve decided to think of it as a whole new project and use what I learned from before, but not compare the two.”

McNally’s play fictionalizes a master class taught by Callas in the early 1970s in which she presides over three young vocal students: two sopranos, Sophie (played by Abigail Grace Allwein) and Sharon (Sara Frondoni), and a tenor, Anthony (Ben Read).

“Terrence (McNally) gives us places where her true passion and her reason for being come out so nicely,” said Campbell. “There are some students who inspire her too, particularly the tenor. She actually gets into coaching the last student (Sharon) because she can see some promise in her.”

The Sharon character is not only the most gifted of the three students in Callas’ class, but also the one who will fight back when she sees her teacher being too stern, even tyrannical. This co-production’s Sharon, Frondoni, is a graduate of La Costa Canyon High School and of the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. A classical vocalist who performs with the San Diego Symphony Festival Chorus, Frondoni last appeared in an area theatrical production in Coronado Playhouse’s “Nine, The Musical” in the summer of 2024.

Frondoni said she wasn’t familiar with “Master Class” before auditioning for the part of Sharon, but “I fell in love with the script immediately and had a connection to it. I think about all of the experiences I had when I was at the Thornton School of Music and what it’s like to be a voice student. All the pressures that has and also the amazing opportunities it brings, and how important the student-teacher relationship can be.”

“I feel like I’ve been every single character in this play at some point, trying to be in a master class and what that means. This play reflects all of that experience. Sharon sticks up for herself, and she is Maria’s challenger. It’s fun to be able to do that.”

Campbell met Frondoni three years ago when Frondoni was starring in Old Town Temecula Community Theater’s production of “The Sound of Music” and Campbell’s spouse, Danny, was directing.

“I always knew she had a lovely voice,” Sandy Campbell said, “but I didn’t know she had that kind of voice. She’s singing that really hard Lady Macbeth Verdi aria (in ‘Master Class’) and she sounds great.”

“Master Class” is based on actual classes that Maria Callas taught to Juilliard School of Music students in New York between October 1971 and March 1972. Audio recordings of some of these sessions exist, Campbell said.

Campbell, an experienced performer in both theater and musical theater and recently a headliner in Cygnet Theatre’s production of “Follies,” didn’t have a “Maria Callas” in her past, but she does acknowledge a mentor.

“My most consistent voice teacher was Diana Ruggiero, who’s now up in L.A.,” she said. “She came from the opera world. She was never as demanding as Maria Callas, but sometimes when I hear Maria talking I think of Diana. She had a lot of the same sorts of things to say about what a great singer is.

“She was our dramaturg and my Italian coach when we did this before (at ion theatre). So I’m thinking of her a lot.”

“Master Class” won the Tony Award for Best Play in 1996. Also taking home Tonys that year were Zoe Caldwell, who portrayed Callas, and Audra McDonald, who played Sharon. McNally’s play divided critics and opera scholars, however. The real-life Maria Callas was a complicated woman whose performing and personal life inspired strong opinions. For all her acclaim, the temperamental Callas parted ways publicly with La Scala, maintained a fierce rivalry with fellow star soprano Renata Tebaldi, and, best known to many, had a rocky relationship with Aristotle Onassis when both were married to others. She reportedly had a child by Onassis that died soon after being born, after having a couple more miscarriages.

McNally’s play goes beyond Callas teaching, even bullying, her students. Along the way and particularly in two lengthy monologues, Callas is immersed in her own story — her triumphs and her trials.

“She really did have a very hard life,” recounted Campbell. “She had a mother who was not interested in her except to push her out and make her work. Her sister was the ‘pretty one’ who got all the attention. But she had this fantastic voice, and this was where her happiness was: working at the conservatory in Greece when she was 13.”

Callas’ life later was missing the same thing it missed in her youth, Campbell said. “She didn’t have a lot of love. She was always looking for love.

“I hope people can understand that she often thought of herself as a victim, too, that her life was terrible, that she didn’t always get the best treatment from a lot of the opera companies.”

Campbell’s takeaway, as she undertakes her second portrayal of Callas, is of the woman not as a victim but as a perfectionist. “She was a diva,” said Campbell, “and she had certain things that she wanted and needed, and she was quite demanding of other people and of herself. But I think in real life it was all because she wanted to make sure those (opera) stories were told correctly and in the best way.”

‘Master Class’

When: Preview, at 7:30 p.m. Friday. Opens Saturday and runs through Dec. 14. 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays

Where: Legler Benbough Theatre, 783 Avenue of Nations, Allied International University, San Diego

Tickets: $30-$52

Phone: 858-395-0573

Online: theroustabouts.org