Written in 1995, Terrence McNally’s Broadway play Master Class was loosely inspired by a series of masterclasses that the great diva Maria Callas – known as La Divina to her fans – conducted at The Juilliard School in the early 1970s.

Lucia Mastrantone and Elisa Colla in Master Class, Ensemble Theatre, 2024. Photo © Prudence Upton

Her performance career is now over, but her ego is still very much in tact as she works with three vocal students – or “victims” as she puts it. Apparently, Callas displayed an exacting attention to technical detail in the masterclasses. Here, she is ruthlessly demanding, caustic, brutal, even cruel at times, in her assessment of the ill-prepared young singers.

The tentative soprano who takes to the stage first is stopped several times after only singing the first word in her aria. At the same time, Callas can also be very funny.

As she pushes the students, she is reminded of her own illustrious but troubled career, as well as her turbulent personal life, including being mocked for being overweight when she was young, and her affair with Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. (It’s not...