The Lisbon Traviata

The Lisbon Traviata is a play by Terrence McNally. The play premiered Off-Broadway in 1989. It revolves around several opera fans, especially of the opera singer Maria Callas, and their gay relationships.

The play focuses on two of the playwright's favorite subjects, gay relationships and Maria Callas. The play has one of his most memorable characters, flamboyantly bitchy and viciously wicked opera queen Mendy. Peter Mark describes him: "...eccentric Mendy, who presides over the first act's delicious envelopment in opera trivia as if he himself had been trapped in a perpetual production of 'Tosca.'"

Stephen, a depressed literary editor and opera fanatic, is on the verge of losing his doctor lover to a considerably younger Columbia University student. In Act I, he takes temporary refuge at the apartment of fellow opera aficionado Mendy to dish about divas, listen to records, and avoid thinking about his rapidly unravelling eight-year relationship. In Act II, he returns home to confront his unfaithful partner.

The play derives its title from an actual 1958 Callas production of La Traviata at Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in the Portuguese capital. Two thousand copies of an unauthorized recording made by a cast member during a live performance, despite their amateur quality, quickly became collector's items among the diva's fans. Stephen recently has acquired one which he neglected to bring with him, and Mendy is obsessed with his going home to retrieve it.

An earlier version of the play was produced at the Theatre Off Park, New York City, by Sherwin M. Goldman, Westport Productions and Theatre Off Park, Inc. on June 4, 1985. Directed by John Tillinger, the cast included Seth Allen as Mendy, Benjamin Hendrickson as Stephen, Steven Culp as Paul and Stephen Schnetzer as Mike.

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