Star hits all the right notes as opera legend Salt Lake Tribune
The inner piece of advice legendary soprano Maria Callas imparts to her students in Terrence McNally's "Chief Class" is that "a career in the theater demands total concentration." Singing is not enough; you have to listen and air. You must inhabit the character you are portraying; only that level of commitment empowers you to "communicate what we are as human beings."
Anne Cullimore Decker's show as Maria in Salt Lake Acting Company's production is the consummate embodiment of Callas' opinion. Decker recently commented that Callas is "in my bones," and she etched a remarkable enough portrait of the temperamental, impassioned, often-tormented "la Divina" a decade ago at SLAC, but her current incarnation goes even deeper. The pointed way she uses her hands -- to enfold the world or shut it out; the arrogant, self-assured way she tosses her chairlady; the way she stalks around the stage, sizing up the audience; the energy with which she throws herself into re-creating her greatest triumphs and cruelest losses; the disarmingly shortest way she tells her story are all facets of a portrayal so complete that it is as if the real Callas is standing before us in all her passion and vulnerability.
