Menotti (The) Consul
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Gian Carlo Menotti
Genre:
Opera
Label: Chandos
Magazine Review Date: 5/1999
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 131
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: CHAN9706
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
(The) Consul |
Gian Carlo Menotti, Composer
Charles Austin, Police Agent, Bass Gian Carlo Menotti, Composer Giovanni Manci, Foreign Woman Graeme Broadbent, Assan, Baritone Herbert Eckhoff, Kofner Jacalyn Kreitzer, Mother John Horton Murray, Magician Louis Otey, Sorel, Tenor Malin Fritz, Vera, Contralto (Female alto) Richard Hickox, Conductor Robin Blitch Wiper, Anna Spoleto Festival Orchestra Susan Bullock, Magda, Soprano Victoria Livengood, Secretary |
Composer or Director: Gian Carlo Menotti
Genre:
Opera
Label: Newport Classic
Magazine Review Date: 5/1999
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 124
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: NPD85645
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
(The) Consul |
Gian Carlo Menotti, Composer
Arianna Zukerman, Anna David Cangelosi, Magician, Tenor Elisabeth Canis, Vera, Contralto (Female alto) Emily Golden, Secretary Gian Carlo Menotti, Composer James Demler, Assan Joel Revzen, Conductor John Cheek, Police Agent, Baritone John Davies, Kofner Joyce Castle, Mother, Mezzo soprano Michael Chioldi, Sorel Michael O'Regan Thiele, Magda Nathalie Morais, Foreign Woman New York Camerata Orchestra |
Author: Edward Seckerson
And yet, for all its cliches, its indiscretions, its righteous posturing, The Consul works, it pushes all the right buttons and does so at precisely the right moments. Provided you accept what Menotti, it seems, could not – that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the common touch – then consider yourself well and truly entertained. Because The Consul is essentially tabloid opera: a popular exposition of weighty issues – fascist politics, dehumanizing bureaucracy. It’s interesting how often it wants to burst into song but cannot quite bring itself to do so. Menotti’s very primary text is set in a very primary, very melodious, fashion. Each new thought, idea, statement, reflection is offered like a song in embryo. Song-like repetitions make for song-like symmetry and in the context of the key scenes at the Consulate he’s happened upon a hypnotic way of conveying the mind-numbing, Kafkaesque monotony of it all: ‘Your name is a number, your story a case, your need a request, your hopes will be filed.’ It demands to be sung; it demands to be insidiously catchy. And it is.
Menotti is a natural tunesmith with a composerly ear for voices. Naturally, he’s Italian. So is the ‘Foreign Woman’ in the first Consulate scene. And once she starts singing – in Italian – you begin to realize how much like Puccini Menotti can sound. The ‘farewell’ trio at the close of Act 1 scene 1, is another case in point (Butterfly: final act). So there are haunting tunes in The Consul; big, tearful ones, too. And Menotti knows how best to deploy them as full-blown emotional climacterics. When our heroine Magda finally gives vent to her frustrations in the now famous scena of Act 2 (‘To this we’ve come’), the flood of melody underscoring the line ‘the day will come, I know’ is such as almost to invite an audience’s cheers, indeed to make them, at that moment, a part of the action. Susan Bullock whips the Spoleto Festival audience into a frenzy on the Hickox set. It’s like Tosca acknowledging applause for dispatching Scarpia. Menotti is acutely aware of his audience. He, too, plays to the gallery.
Which is why it is only fitting that these two new recordings of The Consul (the only other recording, on Brunswick, 10/52, is long deleted) should originate from live performances. In the event, there is really no contest. It is unfortunate for the Berkshire Opera/Newport Classic set that it should have to compete head-to-head with the Chandos version, but, for all the quality of individuals in the cast, it’s a non-starter. Play just the opening for sound and the difference is so startling as to be almost embarrassing. The first orchestral entry in the Chandos version is rather like hearing the Newport set after sand-blasting. Berkshire Opera’s New York Camerata sounds positively emaciated alongside Hickox’s Spoleto Festival Orchestra. It’s not just a question of apparent size (the Spoleto band is plainly bigger and better drilled), but levels of engagement. Richard Hickox’s dynamism far outstrips his American counterpart Joel Revzen. The former is possessed of an intensity and rhythmic imperative that the latter sorely lacks. I’ve no doubt that the Berkshire cast would have shone more brightly under Hickox. Just compare the aforementioned ‘farewell’ trio from the first scene. Hickox stretches the Butterfly analogy almost to breaking point. Then there is the masterly dirge-like ensemble ‘In endless waiting rooms’ which is again about collective musical tension. Menotti has a grand ear for vocal polyphony. These are the finest moments that The Consul has to offer.
The same might well be said of Susan Bullock who, by all accounts (now confirmed), gave the performance of her life as Magda. Beverly O’Regan Thiele is good on the Berkshire set, but it’s the scale, the guts, the defiance of Bullock’s performance that puts the opera in its place. She is every woman against the system and you’d better believe it. Magda is a diva in a shabby mac – which is why her ultimate sacrifice is not played out to the impatient ringing of the telephone (yes, if only Menotti had stopped there) but one final gush of orchestral verisimilitude. A big finish worthy of Tosca in the theatre. Vulgar? Absolutely.'
Discover the world's largest classical music catalogue with Presto Music.
Gramophone Digital Club
- Digital Edition
- Digital Archive
- Reviews Database
- Full website access
From £8.75 / month
SubscribeGramophone Full Club
- Print Edition
- Digital Edition
- Digital Archive
- Reviews Database
- Full website access
From £11.00 / month
Subscribe
If you are a library, university or other organisation that would be interested in an institutional subscription to Gramophone please click here for further information.