A “missionary zeal” is bringing mezzo-soprano Joy Davidson back to the stage—but not the operatic stage. Now that she is retired from a 30-year international career, Davidson is portraying Maria Callas in a new one-woman play, Maria.
The production is based on The Autobiography of Maria Callas: A Novel by Alma H. Bond (alma_bond.tripod.com), the author of 15 published books. Bill Taylor, producing artistic director of Theatre Conspiracy in Fort Myers, Fla., acted as dramaturge. Students and the Dramatists Guild in New York City have already heard readings of the work. The official premiere of this newest version of Maria is set for Feb. 11 and 12, 2009, at the Philharmonic Center for the Arts in Naples, Fla., with Taylor directing and designing the set.
Davidson previously appeared as Callas in Master Class, the award-winning play by Terrence McNally. The director of Master Class felt that as an opera singer Davidson would bring special insight to the role, especially because she had sung on many of the same stages the play mentions. While preparing for Master Class, Davidson found Bond’s book and was impressed. “The sensitivity with which she addressed Callas was very apparent and I appreciated that approach,” Davidson says.
Bond is not a musician. She is a psychoanalyst who has always enjoyed spending time with artistic patients and is deeply interested in Callas as a creative woman.
“As a biographer, I choose the most creative women I can find to write about. When I retired after 37 years from my full-time practice to write full time, I thought, ‘Now is the time to get to know Callas,’” she says.
And get to know her she did. Bond bought three tapes of Callas’ arias and played them to the point of wearing them out. She read every book and almost every newspaper and magazine article written about her, including books by Callas’ mother, sister, husband, and friends. She interviewed people who knew Callas, such as the late opera critic John Ardoin.
“Most important of all, I listened to every one of her CDs I could find until I got to know them by heart. I looked carefully into them for nuances into her character and personality, such as ‘why is that note sung so poignantly when other artists practically ignore it?’ and learned from her singing when she was truly in love,” Bond says. She studied Callas’ ability to soar above an orchestra singing music that proved difficult for other singers.
The facts in the book are historically accurate. The words “A Novel” in the title refer to Bond’s fictitious interpretation of those facts. “For example, the facts are that she had a mother, a father, and a sister,” says Bond. “From my research, it was up to me to decide from the fragments of her life we are given what their real relationships were.” Bond became so enraptured with writing about Callas that she turned the book into a play.
The first version of the play, presented in New York City with Davidson in the title role, featured a six-member cast. Six years later, Bond asked Davidson if she would perform it again. Davidson, however, felt that Maria, for practical reasons, could be more effective as a one-woman play—the responsibility of educating the audience would rest with her and the simplicity of a one-person show would reach more people. She asked Bond to rewrite the play, and Bond was happy to oblige. For the Dramatists Guild in New York, however, the script had to be trimmed to about 50 minutes, so Bond gave Davidson permission to find an editor in southwest Florida.
Davidson contacted Bill Taylor. She had read online about his company, Theatre Conspiracy, which, over the course of more than 10 years, has produced more than 30 world-premiere plays through an annual new play contest. “It fit perfectly into my schedule and I loved the subject, so I accepted. It was a process of picking the most critical things that influenced [Callas’] life: the relationship with her mother, the guidance of [Tullio] Serafin, her marriage and, of course, Ari Onassis,” Taylor says.
As he progressed, he sent each version to Bond and changed anything she did not like. “He kept working on it until I was satisfied. He said he wouldn’t put on anything that I disagreed with,” Bond says.
Davidson now advertises the play as 53 minutes because Callas died at 53 in 1977, and she wants to keep it at 53 minutes. That leaves time for a question-and-answer session, very important to audiences that include opera lovers who remember Callas’ performances, as well as for young artists who may just be learning about “La Divina.” The main concern with the shortened version is maintaining the integrity of the novel and original play. “[The] bottom line is that I must, as Callas, feel the veracity of what I say,” Davidson says.
Her passion for performing Callas is palpable. “This play has called to me largely because I realize the passionate interest in Callas that remains some 30 years after her death and [I realize] that the younger generation is not as connected. The impact that she had on [the younger] generation—on all of us—is incredible because it was this lady who brought theatrical reality to the operatic stage.”
Davidson brought the show to the attention of Callas enthusiast Myra Janco Daniels, founder and CEO of the Philharmonic Center for the Arts in Naples, which presents opera. “She read it for me,” Daniels says, “and it was so moving and powerful that she brought tears to my eyes. We’re looking forward to being the first in our region to present this wonderful play.”
You might wonder how Maria differs from Master Class. McNally’s play depicts Callas in a professional setting, instructing three Juilliard students at masterclasses with an accompanist, and the show is longer.
“I think it is a wonderful play,” Davidson says, “and I love doing the play, but I believe that Maria addresses Callas more as a woman, and more as a very vulnerable woman, as well as celebrates her great artistry. The play deals with the gripping reality that she will not sing again.”
Maria is set in Callas’ dressing room in Sapporo, Japan, after her last concert on Nov. 11, 1974. The play begins with Callas leaving the stage and recounts her family relationships, such as her mother’s exploitation of her voice at a young age, which prevented Callas from having a normal childhood.
Davidson’s costume is a replica of the dress Callas wore that night, and she demands a simple set no matter where she performs the play. “The only requirement I have is that we have a bouquet of two dozen roses. She loved roses, and she uses those roses in almost a childlike way as she talks about her relationship with Onassis. I want to keep this simple so that, in touring the show, it is appropriate for any intimate space,” she says.
She wants to educate young people about Callas’ impact on opera. “This woman . . . changed the standard by which all other opera singers are judged,” Davidson says. For her, opera changed when Callas brought intense drama to an art form that was known for the “stand-and-sing” approach, and her generation benefited from this new intensity of dramatic reality.
“In any profession, it’s very important that we connect with our history. Young singers [need] to learn the traditions and the nuances, and what singers have done in the past, and how music is treated,” Davidson says.
In addition to the educational aspect of bringing this play to the stage, Davidson highlights two other connections she feels with Callas: the operatic connection of having performed for 30 years on the same stages where Callas sang, and the connection of motherhood. Callas desperately wanted a child. Davidson has five children. “Personally, I feel the incredible blessing of having both a career and a family. When I am embodying Callas, I feel her agony of having been denied a family,” she says.
Davidson sang with the Metropolitan Opera, Vienna State Opera, La Scala, New York City Opera, the Madrid and Barcelona operas, San Francisco Opera, and Lyric Opera of Chicago, among other companies. Her signature role was Carmen, which she performed more than 300 times. She was also known for Adalgisa in Norma, Azucena in Il trovatore, Amneris in Aida, Charlotte in Werther, Dalila in Samson et Dalila, and leading roles in operas by Menotti. Orchestras in Boston, Los Angeles, and New York welcomed her as a soloist in works by Mahler, Stravinsky, Ravel, and Beethoven.
Davidson began teaching in the department of vocal/opera studies at the New World School of the Arts in 1989 and taught there full time after she retired from singing in 1995. Her courses included voice, lyric diction, sacred and symphonic vocal literature, vocal pedagogy, and opera history. She is now a professor emeritus.
Maria is appropriate for all ages. For more information about upcoming performances, contact Davidson at davidsons123@hotmail.com. The website is www.classicalsinger.net/joydavidson.
