Menotti of course also wrote *The Saint of Bleecker Street* but *The
Consul* is as bleak an opera as can be imagined.
Coming from a family which itself had to do a number on the American Consul
in Berlin to get a visa to enter the USA in 1937, and which could only
stand by helplessly as loved ones less fortunate perished in the holocaust,
I had a special interest in this opera, even if I hadn't read that it is
often considered Menotti's masterpiece.
Phillip Kennicott's review in the January 1, 2001 Washington Post can still
be found at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5769-2001Jan1.html
where it will be available w/out charge for at least a week before it gets
archived. My own impression of the opera, which I had never heard before,
are pretty much the same as set out in that review, w/ some qualifications.
Unlike other operas I have attended, there were empty seats for this one,
although the hall was pretty well filled. I liked the orchestral music,
was impressed by the vocal ensembles, of which I haven't found many in the
few 20th century operas I've heard, liked the arias, and I'd recognize none
of any of this if I were to hear it again today.
For me, the opera somehow didn't come off. As the story of a "freedom
fighter" in an oppressed land, the tale offered nothing new. As an
indictment of an oppressive police state, *The Consul* pales alongside
*Tosca*. The opera is really neither of the foregoing, but rather an
indictment of a soulless bureaucracy, unable to operate w/out being fed
repetitive, irrelevant data, and then only w/ lumbering slowness. This
is personified in the Secretary, sung by Julia Anne Wolf. She's the only
woman in the opera who's decently groomed, and doesn't wear sensible shoes.
When not talking to petitioners or to a friend on the telephone she's busy
typing although one wonders what because the consulate does nothing for any
of the petitioners (w/ one ironic exception towards the end). It's the
petitioners who have to come up w/ more and more forms and questionnaires,
each of which is always found to contain some defect.
At first it appears that we are not supposed to like the secretary, who
appears in a dream of Magda, the freedom fighter's wife (sung by Joanna
Porackova), as much too intimate w/ Magda's husband, John (sung by Victor
Benedetti), who maintains she is his sister. This in itself is a confusing
wrinkle to the story. There is no reason to suspect John of being
unfaithful and he and the Secretary don't even meet until towards the
end of the opera. Actually, the Secretary directs one petitioner whose
photographs are the wrong size and whose application wasn't properly
notarized, to a notary around the corner and a photo studio nearby,
where the defects in his application could presumably be corrected.
Interestingly, the petitioner never takes her advice, but stays around
to help an applicant who speaks only Italian explain her problem to the
Secretary and then helps her fill out her application. He's still sitting
in the consul's waiting room in subsequent scenes. Also, the Secretary,
actually relented and arranged an interview for Magda w/ the Consul after
Magda had sung her eloquent denunciation of the bureaucratic system and
the injustice and misery of which it is oblivious, and seems genuinely
concerned when Magda faints upon discovering that the consul and the police
agent (hardly a Scarpia!) are friends and offers her smelling salts.
Later, in the last act, when John bursts into the consulate upon having
learned of his baby's death (I told you the opera was bleak!) having
returned from the frontier he had already crossed, she tries to help him
and even protests when the police agent (sung by John Marcus Bindel)
arrests John in what she insists is immune territory. She then tries to
warn Magda by telephoning her.
So perhaps the seemingly callous Secretary isn't really the villain we
might first have thought her to be. At worst she's a repentant Eichmann.
Perhaps the real villain is the Consul himself, who's never seen, and who
is known to be friends w/ the police agent. So, does this change the tale
from an indictment of an unfeeling unrelenting bureaucracy, into a simple
horror story in which the "friend" in whom you've placed your trust and
hope, turns out to be the enemy you sought to escape? For me, the opera
failed to establish itself as either.
Much of the story seemed unconvincing. John could make his way across the
border and back (the first time w/ a wounded leg!) w/out being prevented by
guards on either side, but his family had to wait docilely in the consul's
office for a visa. The police are equally lax in their search of John and
Magda's home and ridiculously ineffective in their interrogations.
The Magician, sung by Robert Baker, provided some emotional relief, both in
the Consul's office and in the final dream sequence. Kathleen Segar, who
sings the part of either John's or Magda's mother is touching as the dying
baby's doting grandmother.
There was the expected applause at the end. Bindel received some "boos"
which I believe were directed at his role rather than his performance,
which I thought quite fine. Porackova received a thundering applause, with
part of the house rising to its feet. The conductor, Anthony Aibel, also
received appropriate recognition.
But by far the greatest applause was for the Director (and composer), Gian
Carlo Menotti, himself, 89 years old, as he made his way across the set,
bringing the entire house up from their chairs.
Walter Meyer
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