KEY POINTS:
The Consul won a Pulitzer in 1950 and Raymond Hawthorne's gripping production for Opera Factory shows the power of Menotti's opera has not dimmed.
Its tale of the struggles of the oppressed human spirit battered by a mindless and nameless totalitarian state spoke powerfully to an America that had been plunged into a new, Cold War.
One felt the toughness of the times in John Eaglen's spare but atmospheric set, balancing domesticity alongside bureaucracy. Phillip Dexter's lighting brought out every nook, cranny and mood, whether played in sinister shadows or under garish expressionist glow.
Indeed, Menotti's very theatrical flights of fancy - the heroine's dream sequence and Jason Te Mete's extravagant turn as the Magician, the sort of thing that Sondheim would be writing in a decade or two - took the breath away.
The experienced Hawthorne realises that singers are what opera is all about. His sure touch centred and illuminated the Act One trio and the quartet of couples in the final act.
Musically, it was an evening that wanted for very little. Rosemary Barnes' musical direction had the measure of Menotti's heightened realism and her resourceful piano soon made one forget that there wasn't an orchestra on hand.
In a solid cast, the males (Te Mete excepted) were slightly overshadowed by their female colleagues. Craig Beardsworth's John Sorel was well sung but could have been a little more robust while the various "heavies" needed the sort of menace that is not yet in these singers' vocabulary.
Emma Sloman's Magda was another winning role for the soprano, building up to her climactic To this we've come, a set piece which shows Menotti capitalising on the Broadway arias of Kurt Weill.
Carmel Carroll's feisty Secretary never missed a cue and was extremely moving in her Oh, those faces (more hints of Sondheim to come) while Mary Newman-Pound, also remarkably subtle in her character sketching of the Mother, was sublime in her Act One Lullaby.
The Consul runs until Saturday. If you want to have an operatic experience with the dramatic punch you got from Auckland Theatre Company's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof last month, don't miss it.
