MANSFIELD, PA— The Mansfield Opera Theatre will present The Consul by Gian Carlo Menotti on Friday, November 13 and Saturday, November 14 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, November 15 at 2:30 p.m. in Steadman Theatre. All performances are free and open to the public.
The production will feature an orchestra, full sets and costumes set in the 1950’s. Students from the Music Department are cast with several roles being doubled and appearing on alternating performances.
Stage direction for the MU production is by Assistant Professor Todd Ranney with musical direction by Professor Youngsuk Kim.
The Consul is an opera in three acts. It was Menotti’s first full-length opera which premiered in 1950 in Philadelphia and later in New York City with a Broadway run of nearly eight months. In 1951 it moved to the United Kingdom and performed at the Cambridge Theatre and at La Scala in Milan, Italy. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1950 also the New York Drama Critics’ Circle award for Best Musical.
The play is set in an unidentified European totalitarian country and follows the struggle of a woman (Magda Sorel) and her husband (John Sorel) who are attempting to leave the country because of his dissident activities. While he is being relentlessly pursued by the police, she is attempting to obtain a visa for herself and family including her husband, his mother and their infant son. She waits and waits at the foreign consulate hoping to obtain the necessary paperwork day after day only to realize the futility of a corrupt bureaucracy. In the end, she is outdone by the system and remains without hope.
The Mansfield Opera Theatre is made possible by support from student activity fees and the MU Music Department.