Tyne Daly stars in 'Master Class'

There was a time, before he refocused on writing books for musicals and opera in the late '90s, when the theater was deeply hooked on regular infusions of witty and timely, substantive yet commercial new plays by Terrence McNally.

One of the most intoxicating was the 1995 "Master Class," less a conventional play than a grand-actress vehicle, in which McNally presumed to speak for Maria Callas, for opera and for the power of art while imagining what happened in classes the late opera diva held at Juilliard in 1971.

He wrote the piece for Zoe Caldwell, whose Tony-winning Callas was flinty, seductive and scary-good. She was succeeded by Patti LuPone, who triumphantly wrestled the role into her own broader, more user-friendly image and, finally, by Dixie Carter, surprisingly convincing as a harder, sadder, tough-businesswoman Callas. Faye Dunaway bought the rights for the movie, which has yet to be made.

If it is hard to imagine Tyne Daly on that particular list, alas, you're right. Daly is such an intelligent, honest, unpredictable talent that, despite the obvious casting improbabilities in the new Broadway revival, we keep waiting for her to pull it off.

As directed by opera-pro Stephen Wadsworth, Daly gets the hardhearted parts nailed, perhaps too well. Her face is made up into a frozen gorgon mask. She snaps commands in Callas' self-taught high-European accent, but without the charm that must make us love -- or even like -- this complex, difficult woman, even a little.

Instead of glimpses of admirable vulnerability, her flashback soliloquies are damp with self-pity -- more Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard" than Callas, the poor Greek girl who transformed from "fat and ugly" to glamorous icon and great singing actress who competed with a president's widow for the vulgarian Aristotle Onassis.

Without a self-immolating Callas at the center, McNally's tribute to the importance of artists sounds as insincere as an afterthought delivered to her three students. Sierra Boggess has appealing confidence as the soprano who overreaches for the heavy Lady Macbeth repertory. Garrett Sorenson impresses with a ringing tenor as the lug with Mario Lanza aspirations and Alexandra Silber cowers endearingly as the cheerful girl seeking "temperament."

But McNally's Callas says "art is domination . . . you make people think there is no other way, no other voice." That kind of art does not happen here.