Philippine Opera Company’s ‘Master Class’: 5 lessons artists must learn from Maria Callas

In an era of viral fame and overnight sensations, it is easy for artists to prioritise their own ego over the work itself. Callas’s approach is the ultimate antidote to this vanity. In McNally’s script, she bluntly tells her students that they must surrender entirely to their chosen medium: “You must be willing to subjugate yourself... subjugate yourself to the music. Always the music. You are its servant. The composer is God.”

This means a dedication to absolute precision. In the play, Callas chastises a student simply for showing up without a pencil to mark her score, recalling her own days in Athens during the war, where a pencil was a choice over food. For Callas, these details separate true artists from amateurs: “A career in the theatre demands total concentration. Hundred per cent detail,” Lauchengco-Yulo recalls the lines. She echoes this sentiment, emphasising that whether you are an opera singer or a cook making a meal, you must not compromise your ingredients or your output. Art is not a place for shortcuts.

It is not enough to possess technical brilliance. You can have perfect pitch or flawless brushstrokes, but without emotional truth, the art falls flat.

Lauchengco-Yulo shares a running joke that the opera world is practically divided into two eras: “BC and AC,” or Before Callas and After Callas. This is because La Divina fundamentally transformed opera by bringing genuine acting and intense drama to the stage. Arman Ferrer, who plays the tenor Anthony Candolino, points out that Callas would even deliberately let her voice crack on a high B-flat if the scene required her character to be dying. To Callas, making the audience feel the visceral reality of a dying woman was vastly more important than hitting a pristine note. 

In McNally’s script, Callas interrupts a student almost immediately, urging her to stop merely “singing” and start understanding the dramatic reality: “Anyone can walk in their sleep. Very few people can weep in song.” For today’s creators, the lesson is clear: your technical skills are merely the vehicle. The destination is always the raw, human truth.

In a world saturated with trends and viral mimicry, it is tempting to copy what already works. However, Callas strictly forbids this. When demonstrating a devastating emotional phrase for a student, she quickly warns, “I don’t want you to imitate me... I only want to show you how I did it.”

Instead of copying her fiery temperament, Callas demands that her students dig inward. For today’s creatives, the lesson is that true artistic mastery cannot be borrowed or stolen. You must forge your own signature. As she tells an unprepared student, you must “Be someone” rather than just another face in the crowd.

Read more: Two Mercedes that belonged to Maria Callas went for auction in Monaco

To create art is to expose oneself to judgment, which requires a specific kind of bravery. Callas often refers to the German word for courage: Mut. She demanded that her students cultivate this courage to survive the brutal realities of the stage.

“There is only discipline, technique and mut,” Callas warns in the play. Modern creatives often shield themselves with irony or digital filters, but great art requires you to be intellectually and emotionally naked. Callas expects nothing less from her students, reminding them to wear their hearts on their sleeves.

Alexandra Bernas, who plays the soprano Sophie de Palma, notes that Callas lived a full life with all its inherent pain, and she demands that same vulnerability from any singer. Bernas also observes that even young, modern audiences are incredibly attuned to these raw feelings when exposed to them. You must have the mut to pull from your own heartbreak and present it unvarnished to the world.

Ultimately, art does not exist in a vacuum; it is an act of communication. Lauchengco-Yulo points out that art and beauty are always created for an audience, and you must give them what they deserve. Even if only one person shows up, that person made the effort to be there, and the artist owes them everything.

In Master Class, Callas quotes a line from the opera Medea: “Ho dato tutto a te,” which translates to “I gave everything for you”. Ferrer relates this to another iconic quote from Tosca, one of Callas’s most renowned performances—“Vissi d’arte. Vissi d’amore.” (I live for the arts, I live for love.)

“I think art should not be exclusive—just for the older people or for the educated ones,” Ferrer says. “I think art is for everybody. We should encourage art even to the young people, because when a child has art in him, we discover that he has more depth, more humanity... and at the end of it all, art endures.”

As the POC celebrates its milestone 25th anniversary, its staging of Master Class is more than just a retrospective of a diva’s life; it is a vital manifesto for the arts. Gutierrez reminds us, “Art is not a luxury. It is a necessity.”

For today’s artists, the path is no easier than it was for Callas. The mediums may have shifted, and the stages may look different, but the core requirements remain unchanged. It takes discipline, it takes courage, and it takes an unyielding dedication to beauty. Take it from La Divina herself: “The older I get, the less I know, but I am certain that what we do matters.”

Master Class opens on May 15 and runs until May 30 at the Carlos P Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza, Makati City

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