The Consul, 7/24/09

Published in Opera News
Oct. 2009, vol 74, no.4
By David Shengold

On July 24, Chautauqua Opera offered Jay Lesenger's powerful, well-cast staging of one of postwar American opera's enduringly effective works, The Consul. With its occasional surreal scenes out of The Twilight Zone, Menotti's work is musically and formally something of a period piece, but the realities it illustrates have not disappeared in the present era, when states such as Belarus and Kirghizia cling to Stalinist ways and Western powers tolerate corrupt, totalitarian regimes for the sake of arms sales and air-force bases. Steven Capone's excellent set — with three banners incorporating newspaper headlines covering a wide variety of civil-rights outrages, including not only the Soviet seizure of Eastern Europe, the walling of West Berlin and Milosevic's ethnic cleansings but also apartheid and our wartime internment of Japanese–Americans — underlined the enduring universality of the work's message.

Menotti's three "curtains" (Norton Hall actually has no curtain) are all theatrical coups, well staged here by Lesenger. Whether one "buys" them upon further reflection is another matter, but the production proved exciting and quite moving. Lesenger had the chorus and minor characters sit stage left, participating when needed, while the center space shifted handily between the apartment of the Sorels and the dehumanizing consulate waiting room. The props, Gregory Slawko's costumes and Georgianna Eberhard's wigs and makeup reflected judicious design and superior craft. The orchestral contribution proved outstanding, thanks to conductor Joel Revzen's clarity and drive.

Lovely, sympathetically vulnerable Georgian soprano Lina Tetriani made a splendid local debut, handling English very well. On opening night, the notably dim supertitles unfortunately lapsed just as she reached the (manipulative but irresistible) climax of "To this we've come," but she made her resolve and hope clear nonetheless. Her strong lyric soprano, darkly shaded, is lighter than traditional Magda casting, but Tetriani, an excellent artist, provided a winning dramatic fulcrum. Meredith Arwady offered striking, very personal contralto tone and warm audience appeal that shone in the Mother's role. The Secretary alone changes essentially over the drama's course; Renée Tatum (a former Chautauqua Young Artist) gave a superb performance, making a poised transition from lacquered indifference to (belated) sympathy in a rich, dynamically layered mezzo. Kelly Anderson (John Sorel) provided solidly focused, strong tone wedded to precise diction and a detailed dramatic portrayal. Bass Ashraf Sewailam made a chillingly suave, vocally assured Secret Police Agent.

All the Young Artists skillfully portrayed older characters. Mezzo Courtney McKeown voiced Vera Boronel with distinction; the distraught Anna Gomez got a convincing, beautifully sung performance from Angela Mortellaro. Tenor Joseph Haughton (Nika Magadoff) and dramatic soprano Elizabeth Beers-Kataria (Foreign Woman) carried off with good voices and aplomb characters whom the stage-wise Menotti should have had the discipline to cut. The Magician provides (unhelpful) comic contrast, and the old Italian woman, evoking Madelon in Andrea Chénier, seems a sentimental sop to "opera folks." Still, The Consul, well done as here, remains gripping.