PRINCETON, NJ Restaurant Dining Guide Announcement

MONOLOGUES:      Maria Callas

Those auditioning for Callas must prepare the 2 monologues provided and they must be fully memorized.   These monologues are representative of the extent of memorization needed by the actress playing Maria.  It is not an exaggeration to state that out of a 43 page script there are at least 20 pages that an ONLY Maria Callas!   The rest of the time she is in dialogue with the other characters. 

Monologue #1

MARIA:   No folderol. This is a master class. Singing is serious business. We're going to roll up our sleeves and work. I appreciate your welcome but enough is enough. Basta. Fini.  Eh?  So. How is everyone? Can you hear me? I don't believe in microphones. Singing is first of all about projection. So is speech. People are forgetting how to listen. They want everything blasted at them. Listening takes concentration. If you can't hear me, it's your fault. You're not concentrating. I don't get any louder than this. So come down closer or leave. No takers? What? You're all scared of me? Eh? Is that it? I don't bite. I promise you. I bark, I bark quite a bit actually, but I don't bite. I don't know what you're expecting. What did they tell you? I hope you're not expecting me to sing. Well, we shall see what we shall see. Allom, so, let's begin.

Where is the first student? Who is the first student? Are they here? When I was a student, I never missed a lesson. Never. Not once. I was never late for one either, In fact, I was usually early. I never wanted to leave the conservatory. I lived, ate and slept music. Music is a discipline. Too many of you are looking for the easy way out. Short cuts. No. If you want to have a career, as I did, and I'm not boasting now, I am not one to boast, you must be willing to subjugate yourself ... is that a word? ... subjugate yourself to the music. Always the music. You are its servant. You are here to serve the composer. The composer is God. In Athens, and this was during the war, I often went to bed hungry but I walked to the conservatory and back every day, six days a week, and sometimes my feet were bleeding because I had no proper shoes. I don't tell you this to melodramatize. Oh no. I tell you to show you who I am. Discipline. Courage. Here. Right here. From the guts. These lights. Who is in charge of these lights? Is someone in charge of these lights? May we have the lights in the auditorium off, please? This is really terrible. We can't work under these conditions. I'm not going to ask a student to come out here until these lights are taken care of. This is what I was talking about. Attention must be paid to every detail. The lights. Your wig. The amount of stage dust. A career in the theatre demands total concentration. 100% detail. You think I'm joking? I'm not joking. You wait, you'll see. If you're ever so lucky to sing in one of the great theatres. I mean La Scala. I mean Covent Garden. I mean L'Opera. I mean Vienna. I mean the Metropolitan. You think it's easy? A great career? Hah! That's all I have to say to you. Hah! Is this my chair? I don't see a cushion. I asked for a cushion. Thank you.

Monologue #2

MARIA. I want to hear you. A straight line. From you through me to Pasta.

          All right. Let's hear it again. With a broken heart this time.

I hate to say it but you should wear longer skirts or slacks. During daytime it's all right. But you must remember, I'm sorry I'm bringing this up, but the public that looks at you from down there sees a little more of you than you might want. Eh?  It's no use now. You should have thought of it before. Forgive me, eh? No laughing. This is a serious matter. Maestro. (Accompanist begins to play again.)

I want you to imagine you are Amina. This is opera, Sophie. You're alone on a great stage. Make us feel what you
feel. Show us that truth. (First Soprano begins the recitative again as lights fade on her and Accompanist and come up strong on Maria who is hearing her performance of the same music. So are we.)

How quickly it all comes back. The great nights. (She listens.)

Ma, Luchino, perche? Why do you have me wearing jewels? I am supposed to be a poor Swiss village girl. "You are not a village girl. You are Maria Callas playing a village girl." Ah, capisco, capisco! I understood. (She listens.)

This was the terrifying moment. The beginning. In the utter, utter silence, my voice filling the void of that vast, darkened auditorium. I felt so alone, so unprotected. Coraggio. It's begun. (She listens.)

What were they expecting? (She listens.)

Ari always said, They're not coming to hear you, no one comes to hear Callas anymore. They've come to look at you. You're not a singer. You're a freak. I'm a freak. We're both freaks. They've come to see us. You're a monstre sacree now. We are both monstres sacrees. And we are fucking.

I don't like that word, Ari.

Fuck you, you don't like that word.
This phrase. Lovely. And I did it well.

Did you hear what I said? Before you were just a singer. A canary who sang for her supper. A fat, ugly canary. And now you are a beautiful woman who fucks Aristotle Onassis.

Ari.

This is how I talk. This is how I have always talked. This is who I am. I'm coarse. I'm crude. I'm vulgar. Unlike some people, I remember from whence I came.

I remember. I remember too well.

They listen to you sing this boring shit music and clap and yell Brava! Brava La Divina! but what they all want to know is what we do in bed. The two Greeks. The two sweaty, piggy, beneath-them Greeks. The richest-man-in-the-world Greek and the most-famous-singer-in-the-world Greek. Together we rule the world. I have people by the balls and I squeeze. I squeeze very hard and without pity. I have you by the balls, Cecilia Sophia Anna Maria Kalogeropoulou. Everyone is for sale and I bought you.

This part. "She sang Amina's great lament in a voice suffused with tears."

 You give me class. I give you my big thick uncircumcised Greek dick and you give me class. I give you my wealth and you give me respect where I never had any. I give you safety from your terror of the theatre, you don't have to go there anymore. I give you everything you want and need but love. I'm lucky. I don't need love. I have class now. ("He" laughs.)

Everyone needs love, Ari. I'm proud. I'm very proud but when it comes to this, to love, to you, to us, I am not.

I don't give love to anyone but my children. Have a child of mine and I will love him. Yes?

Yes, Ari.

Hey, canary, chin up. Look at me. You don't need love either. You have theirs. The snobs and the fags. They adore you. The snobs all want to take you to dinner at Lutece and the fags all want to be you. Frankly, I'm not threatened. You hate it when I call you canary, don't you? It's affectionate. Can't you hear the affection in canary?

I was good tonight. I was very good.

Why don't you give all this up. It's caca, skata anyway. Eh? You know it, I know it. You live on the boat. You can go anywhere you want, stay as long as you want, buy anything you want, within reason. Always within reason. I hate a woman who tries to bleed a man dry. Of course she would have to be some woman to bleed this mother-fucker dry. Do you know how much I'm worth? Do you have any idea of just how much money I have? I breathe money, I sweat money, I shit money.

I don't have to sing anymore? I won't if you don't want me.

Okay, so you don't sing anymore. You don't retire, you stop. There's a difference. Retiring is depressing. Stopping is class. They beg you. You're adamant. No means no, you tell them. I bet you didn't know I had that word in me, did you? Adamant. It means unshakable or immovable, especially in opposition. Hard. Like diamonds. That's us, baby.

That's us, Ari. A matched pair.

But when I want you to sing, you sing. You sing only for me. I have you under the most fucking exclusive contract anybody ever had. And when I ask you to sing, you know what you're going to sing for me, baby? None of that opera skata. That song I taught you about the whore from Piraeus who took it five different ways at the same time. I had to tell you what four of those ways were.

I don't like that song, Ari.

Where have you been all your life, canary? Don't they fuck in the opera house?

I don't like that song.

Sing it anyway.