The Consul
****
Tues 12 Jun, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff
When it was first performed in Philadelphia and later on Broadway in 1950, Gian Carlo Monetti’s opera The Consul — about a woman’s agonising wait for a visa in an unnamed totalitarian state — played to packed houses for almost a year, earning its composer a Pulitzer Prize. It was a shame, however, to see that WNO struggled to fill even half of the main auditorium of the Wales Millennium Centre for their one-off performance of the piece. Another sign of opera’s dwindling appeal perhaps, or maybe the usual crowd were busy limbering up for the Cardiff Singer of the World marathon next week? Whatever the case, audiences sadly missed out on a work that remains poignant and pertinent to our current political climate of anti-immigration rhetoric.
Part of WNO’s Freedom Season, celebrating works that explore issues of justice and human rights, The Consul is a Kafkaesque parable of faceless bureaucracy, following the hopeless plight of Magda Sorel as she applies for an entry visa from a presumably more liberal country, while her dissident husband John is on the run from the Secret Police. But obtaining this visa — which must be approved by a nameless, entirely absent, Godot-like Consulate — is a near-impossible feat, in an unfeeling place where names are numbers and documents must be signed. Over the course of this exasperating process, Magda becomes poorer and poorer, loses her infant son, and her sanity caves in.
Giselle Allen excels as Magda, making the most of the opera’s main set-piece aria, for which she received rapturous applause; Gary Griffiths and Catherine Wyn-Rogers also give stand-out, emotionally charged performances as the runaway dissenter John Sorel and The Mother respectively. The highlights of the opera, however, happen within the waiting room itself, where the stony-faced Secretary (brilliantly portrayed by Leah-Marian Jones) shows little sympathy for her customers’ problems if they don’t have the right paperwork. In a series of darkly comedic vignettes, we witness civilians try and fail to get their stories heard and their documents approved by the Secretary. Peter Hoare has a highly entertaining turn as the magician Nika Magadoff, who performs his hypnosis routines in the waiting room to prove his identity.
It’s fair to say that Monetti’s music is a little uneven. At its worst, the score shrieks and screeches like an old B-movie soundtrack, overly portentous and melodramatic. At its best, however, it sensitively captures the fear and desperation endured by those who patiently and painfully wait, day after day, in the waiting room of the Consulate. The always commendable WNO Orchestra, masterfully conducted by Justin Brown, are boldly placed on stage rather than in the pit, arranged like a crowd of witnesses to the injustices played out on Misty Buckley’s minimal, grey, court-like set. Max Hoehn’s thoughtful direction brings out the human stories at play.
It’s encouraging to see WNO moving with the times, tackling lesser-known, modern operas with a socially conscious edge (e.g. Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, Hans Krása’s Brundibár), rather than sticking to the security of the traditional repertoire. But it would be even more exciting to see the company provide a platform for new operatic pieces and emerging composers, depicting our own times, instead of merely giving the classics a contemporary reboot. If the WNO’s Freedom Season has taught us anything, it’s that opera is still capable of making profound political statements.
words Sam Pryce
WNO’s Freedom Season runs until Sun 30 Jun and includes performances, talks and exhibitions. More info here