Bio Rhythms

Mahalia and Master Class exhume musical performers worth singing about

Comments (0) By Robrt L. Pela Thursday, Nov 18 1999

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Tim Fuller

Opera queen: Gordana Rashovich (right) in Master Class.

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The high point of the production, gracefully directed by Bruce K. Sevy, comes when Callas, enraptured by her own memories, draws her past onto the stage. One minute she's listening to a student singing an aria, the next moment -- with the help of Vicki Smith's smartly designed scrims and Rick Paulsen's expert lighting -- the concert hall falls away and we are in an opera house, reliving with Callas the moment when she originated the same aria years before. In another, similar scene, Callas recalls her broken romance with Greek multimillionaire Aristotle Onassis, who dumped her in favor of Jacqueline Kennedy -- a solo monologue so wonderfully interpreted by Rashovich that Onassis becomes almost real, another player on the stage.

There are other actors on stage with her from time to time, each of them an accomplished singer who turns in a fine performance. But Rashovich, using every powerful means available to a theater artist, keeps us so enraptured that she might well be performing solo.