Opera review: Glimmerglass cast performs dark ‘Consul’ with passion

From left, Joyce Castle is The Mother, Michael Chioldi portrays John Sorel and Melissa Citro stars as Magda in Glimmerglass Operaâ€™s â€œThe Consul.â€

Don’t expect to be uplifted by Glimmerglass Opera’s brilliant production of Gian Carlo Menotti’s “The Consul,” which opened Saturday night at the Alice Busch Opera Theater.

The drama, set in some dictatorship in modern times, is a tough slough and very Cold War. Menotti won the Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award in 1950 for the three-act opera, and the libretto, which he wrote, reflects the politics of the time.

Magda, sung by dramatic soprano Melissa Citro, seeks an exit visa from the Consulate so she can join her husband, sung by baritone Michael Chioldi, who is wanted by the Secret Police as a freedom fighter.

But at every turn, the Consulate’s secretary, sung with irony by soprano Leah Wool, keeps giving her the bureaucratic run-around asking for more paperwork. (We never see or hear the Consul.)

This depresses and disheartens Magda. Meanwhile, her baby dies and her mother, sung by mezzo-soprano Joyce Castle, dies. Eventually, her husband surrenders and Magda accepts her desperate fate.

‘The Consul’

WHERE: Glimmerglass Opera, Alice Busch Opera Theatre, 7300 State Highway 80, Cooperstown

WHEN: July 30, and Aug. 1, 7, 9, 15, 18, 22 and 24; times vary

HOW MUCH: $130-$48

MORE INFO: (607) 547-2255 or www.glimmerglass.org

With such a dark plot, it was no wonder why most of the singers in the cast sang with passionate intensity. Menotti wrote the vocal lines in 20th century style: angular and through composed (no repeated motifs) and with some spoken dialogue.

This didn’t mean there was no lyricism. Sometimes, such as in Castle’s lovely lullaby, it was sweet and gentle. Other times, the music soared a terrible yearning.

The orchestra, which was passionately conducted by David Angus in his first show as the company’s new music director, played superbly.

Show-stopping applause

Usually, it was sheer drama as in Magda’s desperate and anguished plea in the second act, in which Citro gave it everything she had. The fervent applause and loud “bravos” stopped the show.

Fortunately, it was not all turgid, swirling and dense waters. Menotti put an unlikely vaudevillian into the cast: the magician sung admirably by tenor John Easterlin. He performed more than 40 magic effects with balls, scarves, cards and even pulled a live rabbit out of the hat. Easterlin spent more than 200 hours since April learning how to do the tricks, devised by Peter Samelson, and they were a welcome relief.

Andrew Lieberman’s open and many-tiered set required the capacity crowd’s imagination. The opera’s existential ending also set the crowd chattering. Did he die? Did she commit suicide or give herself up to a disconsolate fate? It was all very amorphous and Sartre-like.