Menotti’s ‘The Consul’ – Harrow Opera
Wednesday 4th March 2026 7:30 PM, Pump House Theatre, 5 Local Board Road, Watford, Hertfordshire, WD17 2JP.
Programme
Gian Carlo Menotti – The Consul
Performers
Leon Berger – stage director
Margaret Johnson – Music Director
Harrow Opera
Programme Note
Menotti’s 20th Century masterpiece premiered on Broadway, and was the winner of the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Music and the New York Drama Critics Circle awards as best Musical of 1950.
Magda Sorel’s husband is a member of the resistance movement in a European state. The secret police are on his trail. He flees to the mountains and advsies his wife to apply to the consulate of a “friendly” state for a visa, and to wait for him in that country. Menotti’s powerful opera tackles a subject that has once again, almost 75 years later, become a major issue as the population of poorer countries attempt to gain access to richer countries, many claiming to escape war and persecution. But the arguments and sentiments uttered by refugees and social commentators have remained unchanged. This is an opera both of its time and our time.