Kennedy Center gives 'Consul' a voice

Gian Carlo Menotti's tale of political oppression has performances scheduled Dec. 30 through Jan. 26 in the nation's capital.

By JOHN BELL YOUNG

© St. Petersburg Times, published December 26, 2000

To this we've come!

No, it isn't another election quote from a political pundit. On the contrary, that defiant statement has artistic origins, though its meaning is no less ideologically charged. They are the words of Magda, the troubled central character in Gian Carlo Menotti's once controversial opera about political oppression, The Consul.

For the 50th anniversary of the work, the Washington Opera is reviving the Pulitzer Prize winner, just in time for Inauguration Day, at Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center. The opera premieres Dec. 30 and runs through Jan. 26. Menotti, who celebrates his 90th birthday this year, will serve as stage director in collaboration with conductor Joel Revzen.

Why The Consul?

"It was written by one of the great living composers whose works I have always admired," explains famed tenor Placido Domingo, the company's artistic director since 1996. "Also, I had the honor of giving the world premiere of Menotti's Goya (in 1986) which, by the way, also happened to be my introduction to the Washington Opera."

And although the opera isn't as controversial as it was a half-century ago, its content makes it as fresh as ever, he said.

"The Consul has again become as timely as when it was written. The terrible barriers between countries and the difficulties humanity often faces in seeking asylum in some vaguely peaceful haven are as pronounced today as they ever were. To whit, what happens in the war-torn countries of the Balkans, the near East, and so much of Africa and Asia? Anyone who says that The Consul is dated is simply running away from reality."

At the time of The Consul's premiere, Congress had taken steps, through the McCarran Act, to keep people deemed political subversives out of the country. That ideology helped set the stage for Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his House Committee on Un-American Activities just a few years later.

"When The Consul was first performed my detractors predicted a short life for it, claiming it would become an anachronism," Menotti said last week from Washington. "That it has survived this long is in a way a rather sad commentary on the state of art today, where the tyranny of bureaucracy continues to dominate our lives."

The Consul's resonance was amplified all the more when Menotti resolved to make it a vehicle for the lyric theater. Rather than having it staged at a major opera house, he took it to Broadway and thus a wider public. It ran there for an unprecedented 269 consecutive performances and earned a New York Drama Critics Award. It has since been translated into 12 languages and performed in some 20 countries.

Why Broadway?

"From my perspective, it was important that the audience react to it not only as a musical work, but as an overall theatrical experience. I wanted to prove that opera does not belong to opera houses but is an art form that can withstand development in many ways and for many different kinds of audiences."

Set in a nameless authoritarian state, The Consul concerns the fate of John Sorel (played by Victor Benedetti), a radical political fugitive from the state police, and his wife, Magda. In her efforts to win political asylum for her family, she becomes a victim of both her husband's ambition and the Fascist government's determination to capture him.

The monolithic bureaucracy buries her in paperwork, by-the-book functionaries and endless queues. She cannot get to the one person who can help her, the consul, a faceless, nameless diplomat whose silence seals her fate. The title character is never seen nor heard during the entire two-hour production.

"Your name is a number, your story a case!" intones the stony secretary (Julia Anne Wolf) who inhabits the consul's gray office.

Crushed by oppression, traumatized by the unexpected death of her infant son, the valiant and ever-hopeful Magda is burdened by responsibilities for which she is wholly unprepared. Eventually, both time and luck run out on her struggle to protect her family.

The grim conclusion bears witness to the gas-induced suicide of Magda, a good person overwhelmed by a vicious cycle of injustice and oppression. It's a human tragedy, one all too recognizable to students of history and observers of current events.

"The story is enormously relevant today," says Edward Purrington, the Washington Opera's administrative director. "Think of people who would like to get out of countries all over the world and are stymied by the system. We feel that it speaks to our time, perhaps even more than it did in the relative context of Eastern Europe in the 1950s."

Casting for The Consul was an arduous process. Of the 11 roles, only four singers assume the bulk of the work. "Though Magda is a tour-de-force role, all the characters are important in this opera, which has the dimensions of a chamber piece" says Revzen, who has recorded it for the Newport Classics label. "Mr. Menotti wrote the libretto, too, and has drawn each character with a strong, individual personality."

The lead role of Magda, who is on stage for the duration, is a coveted assignment in opera. It is made for a charismatic soprano who has tremendous stamina, great acting ability and an exceptionally versatile voice. Many presumed the Washington Opera would tap a world renowned diva whose name alone could carry a work that, even for the dedicated opera devotee, is off the beaten track.

So when Domingo announced the role would be played by the relatively unknown Joanna Porackova, more than one head turned. "Among the most outstanding artists to emerge from "cold' auditions is Joanna Porackova," Purrington says. "She made a stunning impression when she first auditioned for me in 1994, for a different role, in a rehearsal room at the Kennedy Center. Uncanny, but I knew then, from the moment she began to sing, that she was Magda Sorel."

But Porackova, a Boston native and former pediatric nurse, is no overnight success story. Her performances of the standard repertory at home and abroad have impressed critics and audiences for nearly a decade. Originally a violinist, she settled on her first love, the voice, studying extensively in New York and in Naples, Fla., with Thomas Michael Trimble and later with the celebrated soprano Phyllis Curtin. Porackova is a throwback to the singing stars of an earlier era, bringing to mind three of the 20th century's greatest sopranos: Zinka Milanov, Maria Callas, and Magda Olivero.

"She is the rarest and certainly one of the greatest, most important voices to come along in her generation," says Trimble, himself a singer at the Metropolitan Opera before becoming a coach to the stars.

She is one of those singers who can float a tone so quietly, yet with such radiance as to fill a football stadium in a delicate wash of sound. Like Maria Callas', the grain of her voice may take some getting used to for its intensity and wealth of affective nuances, but few singers deliver a song with such intoxicating allure and compassion.

Porackova, who is a marathon swimmer when she isn't singing ("It's great for the lungs."), describes Magda Sorel with the affection of an old friend. "She is an extremely strong and loyal individual, whose womanly instincts to protect her family are her No. 1 priority," she said in a phone interview from her home in Washington.

"Her selflessness motivates every move she makes. As far as her political sympathies, she resents her husband's involvement and affiliations, but that won't stand in the way of her loyalty. By the opera's end, separated from him forever, she's moved into his political corner, refusing to betray his friends and thus protecting his cause."

The complex Magda presents special challenges. "It's not a "stand and sing' role, but theatrical. It is a physically active work that is musically as well as emotionally dramatic. You have to sing the text as if you were really speaking it. Even where the composer asks for actual speech, there is always a lyrically inflected line underneath that conveys the nuances and colors, which Mr. Menotti has so carefully wrought. This is not an opera that is meant to be pretty, though there are many beautiful melodies and harmonies."

"Working with Mr. Menotti is wonderful," she says of the noted taskmaster. "He has an incredible ear and communicates so effectively what he wants in the characters. . . . He puts a great deal of emphasis on diction, too, on understanding each word, which demonstrates his great respect for the singers as well as the audience."

Porackova's debut in The Consul is good news to some of her well-known admirers. "It now strikes me as perfect that Joanna will sing the role of Magda," says veteran broadcaster and composer Hugh Downs. "That's a heavy, tragic affair, gut-wrenching, and a frothy soprano could never do it."

Academy Award-winning actor Olympia Dukakis, who was an early mentor of Porackova when they were both Trimble students, concurs. "Joanna is an incredible talent, a wonderful singer and actress, a real presence."

Revzen says he is thrilled by his "wonderful cast." Yet he notes that the greatest presence is The Consul itself.

"The challenge of the work," he points out, "is to make absolutely certain that it doesn't dissolve into mere melodrama; rather, we are dealing with genuine, honest human emotions. We have to make it feel real, but also contemporary, as if were happening today, at this very moment."

John Bell Young is a pianist and critic who has recorded for the Newport, Sony and Americus labels. He writes for the American Record Guide and Opera News and lives in Spring Hill. He can be reached at http://www.johnbellyoung.com

More on The Consul: The performance runs Dec. 30-Jan. 26 at Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center. For more information, check http://www.dc-opera.org, or call (202) 295-2400. Joanna Porackova will appear in all productions except Jan. 9, 14, 19 and 24, when her understudy, Beverly O'Regan Thiele, will assume the role of Magda.

Porackova can be heard at her website: http://www.mp3.com For more information about her, visit http://www.musicbase.org

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