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OPERA REVIEW
Gian-Carlo Menotti's The Consul
May 29, 1999
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By Heather Hadlock
The Consul (presented by West Bay Opera in Palo Alto on Saturday, May 29) is not an opera for anyone who dreads standing in line at the DMV, the passport office, or most especially the Immigration
and Naturalization Service. The situation is very simple: Magda Sorel is petitioning an unnamed European
country for asylum for herself and her husband John, a political dissident who is hiding from their own
country's apparently omniscient secret police. Every day for a month Magda goes to the consulate seeking
an interview with the Consul, whose secretary repeatedly puts her off with demands for more
documentation.
The piece oscillates between verismo emotion for the protagonists and Kafkaesque irony in the consulate
scenes; conductor Henry Mollicone handled both idioms with equal deftness. Magda and John's Act I
farewell, "Oh lips, say goodbye," a sweeping theme in the verismo vein, returns to underline the tragic
events of Act IV. Michelle Manzell, as Magda's mother-in-law, gave a beautiful account of her haunting
Act II lullaby for Magda's starving baby.
Composer Gian-Carlo Menotti turned the bureaucratic milieu to ironic musical effect in the three
waiting-room scenes, where the petitioners' increasingly desperate repetitions of "my daughter is very ill,"
and "please let me explain" combine with the Secretary's repeated announcements that "the Consul is
busy" and "come back tomorrow." Act I featured witty and poignant performances by Michael Morris as
Mr. Kofner, whose documents are never quite in order, and by Amy McKenzie as The Foreign Woman,
whose Puccinian aria about her dying daughter must be simultaneously translated into prose patter for the
chilly and uncomprehending Secretary.
When Magda's turn comes, and she appeals to the Secretary to intervene for her persecuted husband, it
becomes clear that this is only nominally a government office. In operatic terms, this is the outer gate of
Hades, with Magda a harried Orpheus doing her best to persuade the Furies to let her plead her case
before Pluto in the inner office. The Secretary, unlike the Furies, does not yield, but curtly dismisses every
plea with her ritualistic statement, "the Consul is busy." And Magda, despite her eloquence, never gains
the inner sanctum; she retires with the other petitioners to the banks of the Styx, there to fill out a
mountain of paperwork.
Jean-Francois Revon's set is effective, though considerably less polished than the one he created for last
year's Turn of the Screw. I did appreciate the six mildly grotesque portraits that dominate the
waiting room at the consulate, one like a caricature of Lenin, another resembling Mr. Burns on The
Simpsons. Their hollow eyes glowed demonic yellow at the shocking climax of Act II, when Magda's
nemesis, the Secret Police Agent, emerges from the Consul's office.
All the singers were very fine, and Kathryn Hunter received well-deserved bravos in the demanding role of
Magda. Yet I found Emily Stern, as The Secretary, even more impressive. She was perfect as the
exacting bureaucrat who seems to relish the obstacles she places in each petitioner's way: sardonic, even
cruel, barely concealing her impatience with these fools who think their case is special. But after hours, in
Act III she revealed a human side, admitting how painful it is to confront "all those faces" all day, every
day. Her futile attempt to shield John from the secret police was as poignant, in its brevity, as Magda's
long suicide scene. Compared to The Secretary, the demonic Secret Police Agent and even the saintly
Magda and John seemed strangely one-dimensional.
(Heather Hadlock is Assistant Professor of Music History at Stanford University.)
©1999 Heather Hadlock, all rights reserved
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