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Friday, October 21 - 30, 2011
McCullough Theatre

Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music
Butler Opera Center

THE CONSUL
by Gian Carlo Menotti

General Admission $20
Faculty/Staff $17
Students $10

Menotti’s opera THE CONSUL is a nightmare-thriller of an opera, set in a police state where the central character, Magda, is trying to flee the country and in need of a visa from the unseen and unheard consul. It does feel like Puccinian verismo, albeit with contemporary touches and a fantasy element that sits beside the thriller tension. But mostly this is music-theatre of unnerving power-with a climactic Act 2 aria that stops the show, your heart and your disbelief. Menotti has (or had, in 1950 when the piece was written) an instinctive feel for high suspense, and what he created in THE CONSUL is Hitchcock with recitatives.

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