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CHAN 9706 Bookcover.qxd 25/7/07 12:55 pm Page 1 Chan 9706(2) CHANDOS MENOTTI CHAN 9706 BOOK.qxd 25/7/07 12:57 pm Page 2 Gian Carlo Menotti (b. 1911) The Consul AKG Opera in three acts Libretto by the composer Magda Sorel ....................................................................................................................Susan Bullock soprano John Sorel ..............................................................................................................................Louis Otey baritone Mother ............................................................................................................................Jacalyn Kreitzer contralto Secret Agent ..........................................................................................................................Charles Austin bass Secretary......................................................................................................Victoria Livengood mezzo-soprano Mr Kofner ......................................................................................................................Herbert Eckhoff baritone Foreign Woman ............................................................................................................Giovanna Manci soprano Anna Gomez ............................................................................................................Robin Blitch Wiper soprano Vera Boronel..........................................................................................................................Malin Fritz contralto Magician ......................................................................................................................John Horton Murray tenor Assan..........................................................................................................................Graeme Broadbent baritone Spoleto Festival Orchestra Gian Carlo Menotti Richard Hickox 2 3 CHAN 9706 BOOK.qxd 25/7/07 12:57 pm Page 4 COMPACT DISC ONE 12 ‘John, John, why did you bring me…’ 5:07 [p. 83] [p. 00] Magda, John, Mother Act I 44:43 [p. 31] 13 ‘It is the signal!’ 6:16 [p. 91] Scene 1 23:30 [p. 31] Magda, Mother, Police Agent, Assan 14 ‘Mother, why are you so still, Mother!’ 4:48 [p. 103] 1 ‘Tu reviendras et voudras m’enfermer dans tes bras’ 5:28 [p. 31] Voice on record, John, Magda, Mother Magda, Mother 15 Interlude 2:21 [p. 105] 2 ‘Quick, John! The Police!’ 7:19 [p. 39] Mother, Magda, Police Agent TT 69:55 [p. 311] 3 ‘Don’t move yet’ 5:01 [p. 45] Magda, Mother, John COMPACT DISC TWO [p. 00] 4 ‘Now, O lips, say goodbye’ 5:41 [p. 51] Magda, Mother, John Scene 2 29:11 [p. 311] 1 5 Interlude 2:36 [p. 53] ‘What did you say your name was?’ 3:21 [p. 107] Secretary, Anna Gomez, Vera Boronel, Mr Kofner, Magda, Magician Scene 2 18:37 [p. 31] 2 ‘My charming Ma’moiselle’ 10:52 [p. 111] 6 ‘Next. Yes… What can I do for you?’ 3:22 [p. 55] Magician, Secretary, Anna Gomez, Vera Boronel, Mr Kofner, Secretary, Mr Kofner Magda, Foreign Woman 3 7 ‘Next. Next!’ 4:37 [p. 59] ‘Any news for me?’ 2:47 [p. 125] Secretary, Magda, Foreign Woman, Mr Kofner Magda, Secretary 4 8 ‘Next. Hello. Oh! It’s you!’ 5:58 [p. 65] ‘To this we’ve come’ 8:44 [p. 129 Secretary, Magda Magda, Vera Boronel, Mr Kofner, Secretary 5 9 ‘I beg your pardon, Madam’ 4:40 [p. 73] ‘You’re being very unreasonable, Mrs Sorel’ 3:28 [p. 133] Magician, Vera Boronel, Magda, Foreign Woman, Mr Kofner Secretary, Anna Gomez, Vera Boronel, Mr Kofner Act II 54:17 [p. 31] Act III 31:50 [p. 311] Scene 1 22:45 [p. 31] Scene 1 17:09 [p. 311] 6 10 ‘Tu reviendras et voudras m’enfermer dans tes bras’ 3:46 [p. 77] ‘How often must I tell you, Mrs Sorel’ 5:43 [p. 137] Voice on record, Mother, Magda Secretary, Vera Boronel, Assan, Magda 7 11 ‘I shall find for you shells and stars’ 2:49 [p. 79] ‘Don’t forget to sign’ 2:51 [p. 145] Mother Secretary, Vera Boronel, Magda, Assan 4 5 CHAN 9706 BOOK.qxd 25/7/07 12:57 pm Page 6 8 ‘Oh, those faces! All those faces!’ 2:22 [p. 151] Secretary Menotti: The Consul 9 ‘Who are you? How did you get in?’ 1:59 [p. 153] Secretary, John …this new music drama, quite apart from its sensational works performed as he has created them’. Opera, he 10 ‘You cannot arrest him here’ 0:53 [p. 155] score carries a message which is as timely as the next conjectured, was the legitimate descendant of the Secretary, Police Agent, John session of the UN and as urgent as the ideological life and great and ancient Greek theatre – all noble cultures 11 ‘Don’t be afraid, Mr Sorel!’ [p. 157] death struggle now going on the world over. combined music, dance, the spoken word, as a matter Secretary Few new operas, this century, attract rave reviews. of course. Interlude 3:21 [p. 311] Only one perhaps has found comment in the leader A contemporary composer, he argued, could not pages of a major world newspaper – The Herald then merely string together a series of brilliant arias, Tribune – as quoted here. But Gian Carlo Menotti’s as had done his colleagues from the past. The The Consul, premiered on 15 March 1950, made challenge, he defined, was the recitative – ‘the logical immediate contact in a country where nerves were instrument of action… which must be made to work Scene 2 14:41 [p. 311] raw and skin was thin. The recent McCarron Act had musically and dramatically’. Then, with a single, 12 ‘I never meant to do this’ 2:58 [p. 159] forbidden America to any outsider whose political elegantly written musical phrase, the composer may Magda yearnings might be deemed unsuitable. Menotti’s convey the most subtle relationships between story of freedom denied, of endless waiting, of lists characters, and minute, oblique inflections in emotions. 13 ‘Lo, Death’s frontiers are open’ 7:07 [p. 159] and numbers, of fear, frustration and mistrust, chimed In The Consul, to a libretto of Menotti’s own, that Foreign Woman, Anna Gomez, Secretary, Vera Boronel, Mother, uneasily with the mood of a people who saw the sense of text fused to musical line, of expression John, Mr Kofner, Magda, Voice, Magician oppressed of every land gaze at the home of plenty pared down to a gleaming shard of truth, is perhaps 14 ‘No! Wait! Wait… I’m coming with you’ 4:36 [p. 169] and opportunity, knowing that the doors to this the work’s greatest miracle. For, setting aside the Magda, Mother, John, Magician, others Utopia were firmly and unfairly closed. ‘va-hry gloomy’ story (Menotti’s own words), this is an TT 61:05 [p. 311] But The Consul, its topical plot aside, provoked opera in which, perhaps, we all appear, which forces different, more musicological discussion. Menotti, us, in some way, to take responsibility for our own writing – again The Herald Tribune paid eager glib feelings and ill-considered reactions. We appear attention – found it necessary to explain to those as bullies, as cowards, as mindless lookers-on, as the critics who appeared amazed that he should choose shufflers of papers, as the performer who cannot to write for lyric theatre. Opera, they protested, was a resist the showing off of tricks. And Menotti’s music, form now perceived as old-fashioned, unwieldy, and whether in the brilliant swirl of orchestral sound, or in somehow stranded in land and language with no the tiny, nervy melodic swerve on which teeter a few timely references. Menotti, disconcerted, explained brittle words, has us come alive – uncomfortably, with that lyric theatre was for him the most satisfactory jittering nerves – and forced to confront our feelings. and challenging of forms, and ‘the last citadel of Few, as Magda sings her astonishing ‘To this we’ve artistic freedom for the writer who wishes to see his come: that men withhold the world from men…’ – a 6 7 CHAN 9706 BOOK.qxd 25/7/07 12:57 pm Page 8 scene which does, quite literally, stop the show – can which revealed, indelibly, his utter mastery of lyric but to expect in time a signal which will herald news: She wakes with a scream; the mother comforts her. breathe with ease. Few, at the opera’s end, can theatrical form. someone will throw a stone to break the window, then Then, suddenly, the window shatters. Magda rushes to chatter easily. The ‘little man’ – expendable, awkward Today Menotti divides his time between Spoleto, she must fetch Assan the glasscutter who will bring a telephone Assan. Immediately, the Police arrive, only in his opinions – has gone down fighting the cause of where his Festival dei due mondi continues to message. John and Magda bid a tense farewell. to insinuate that she could, of course, join her freedom. He will never, though, in Menotti’s more introduce the greatest young talents from the USA husband if only she might divulge a little information humane world, merely vanish without trace. and to give them the opportunity to make music and Scene 2 about his friends. Magda loses control, yells at the For Menotti, in 1950, was no stranger to material theatre with some of the world’s most distinguished At the Consulate, a secretary sits at her desk. Behind agent and threatens violence if he returns. which might disturb, or indeed to the breaking of artists – they, in their time, having been launched at her is the door to the Consul’s room. A Mr Kofner has Assan tells Magda that John is in hiding in the hills, theatrical precedent. In 1947 his dramatic The earlier Spoleto celebrations – and his beautiful Adam his visa rejected – the photographs are the wrong and will not leave until he is assured that she has a Medium had already triumphed as the first opera to home near Edinburgh. Projects continue to simmer – a size. A foreign woman moves forward – the secretary visa and can follow him. Magda tells Assan to lie, and enjoy a Broadway run – the great Italian maestro piano concerto is incomplete, manuscripts wait in the cannot understand her language and Mr Kofner offers to tell John that all the papers are in place. She Arturo Toscanini saw it twice, on his second visit study, scores lie in heaps amongst precious books to interpret. The woman is desperate, her daughter is knows that no other means will persuade him to save venturing backstage to kiss all the girls in the cast.