San Francisco Classical Voice

OPERA REVIEW Fine Consul in Genial Space

November 10, 2001

By Eric Valliere

At their best, community theaters spotlight local talent while bringing works to audiences otherwise deprived. It is obvious why organizations of this sort are so crucial to the artistic and social fabric of small towns across America; less clear is how they contribute to cities where first class productions are plentiful. But a visit to Potrero Hill's Goat Hall makes the reason all too plain: our city is not only bursting with talent and energy, but there are a varied set of communities with a passion for music who, for reasons all their own, enjoy a venue and production more relaxed than those at the Opera House or Yerba Buena Center. For those willing to live without supertitles and champagne, the converted church space of Goat Hall provides an intimate setting for small-scale endeavors — no opera glasses needed.

The company continued its fascination for Menotti with a performance of his 1950 Pulitzer-Prize winning chamber opera, The Consul, last Saturday in San Francisco (this was the second of three consecutive weekends; the show closes November 18). Menotti turns out to be the perfect composer for this group, and no wonder that music director Mark Alburger and director Harriet March Page return to his works again and again. In The Consul the music is interesting without being difficult, but the subject is meaty enough to elicit an emotional investment. The emotion, in turn, has more chance to come through since it's not obscured by vocal pyrotechnics.

Although Menotti does not call for coloratura, he gives the singers plenty to do. The cast came through nicely. Debra Golata nearly steals the show with her “I shall fight for you” aria, sung to her dying grandson in luscious mezzo. Becket Swede clearly has a voice too big for the hall, holding back for the space, he only added to the character's sense of pent-up rage and disappointment. As the beleaguered Magda Sorel, Fran Burgess brought a harried desperation to her role that rang true, particularly in her frustrated breakdown at the end of Act II. The scene is, of course, craftily timed at the moment of highest frustration for the audience — by now we've had it, too, with the cold bureaucracy. Burgess's performance ensures our sympathies are with Magda.

Minor Flaws Detract

One missed opportunity was the handling of the Secretary. As directed for this production, Alexandra Picard plays her as part persnickety librarian, part Elmira Gulch, and she does it wonderfully, with charisma and spot-on singing. However, hers is a shallow reading of a crucial character, and the Secretary's eventual change of heart is less believable because of it. In fact, the Secretary is a good-hearted pawn, doing her job fearfully, unable to think outside of the box she's in. That magnifies the frustrations of the refugees, as they have no one at whom to direct their anger. If these are ALL good people, then their treatment of each other is that much more inhuman and incomprehensible, clearly the state of affairs of which Menotti warned.

Goat Hall's ambition was perhaps larger than the venue and budget allowed. Some judicious cuts in the piece would have done more good than harm (getting rid of an overlong set piece with the Magician and several stiff “dream sequences,” for example). The set would have benefited by leaving more to the audience's imagination. We can visualize a “repressive state somewhere in the world” better than the mélange of furniture found in the converted church can represent it. Less is sometimes more. But their ambition of bringing the audience closer to the action, and bringing the music closer to home, was certainly realized and will always be welcome.

(Eric Valliere earned his doctorate in composition from New England Conservatory in Boston, where he has also served on the Musicology faculty. He currently serves as Executive Director of the San Francisco Chamber Singers and administers the Noe Valley Chamber Music Series. His critical writings have appeared in New Music Connoisseur and on Andante.com.)