MENOTTI’S THE CONSUL IN DAYTON

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Kara Shay Rhomson

Dayton Opera opens its Season 2017-2018 with Gian Carlo Menotti’s THE CONSUL

When: Friday, October 20, 2017 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, October 22, 2017 at 3 p.m.

Where: In the Mead Theatre of the Schuster Center, Dayton, Ohio.

What: Dayton Opera, under the leadership of Artistic Director Thomas Bankston, will present Gian Carlo Menotti’s opera The Consul.

Other information: Tickets – $28 to $94 at (937) 228-3630.  Senior, Student and Military discounts.  Website www.daytonperformingarts.org

Dayton Opera, as part of the Performing Arts Alliance effort to make Opera a tool for social change will partner with the University of Dayton’s Arts Immersion Initiative. Dayton Opera with also join several Dayton organizations in Building Peace Through the Arts 2017,

Cast and production team:  Kara Shay Thomson (Magda Sorel), Tyler Alessi (John Sorel), Cindy Sadler (The Mother), Kenneth Shaw (Secret Police Agent), Layna Chianakas (The Secretary), with Robert Norman, Thomas Hammons, Alexander Harper, Andrea Chenoweth,  Minnita Daniel-Cox and Ryu-Kyung Kim. Director: Gary Briggle. Conductor: Patrick Reynolds.

The Consul is an opera for our time. Its theme of the struggle against an oppressive regime that persecutes dissidents, and its stifling bureaucracy are as vivid as yesterday’s national and international news.

Sixty-seven years ago Menotti’s opera ran for eight months on Broadway, going on to win both the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Music and a 1950 New York Drama Critics’ Circle award.

The Consul is sung in English and it has a running time of approximately three hours.

Magda’s aria: To this we’ve come sung by Patricia Neway in a 1960 television broadcast of the complete opera: https://youtu.be/AIB9cGlLkm0

Rafael de Acha   http://www.Rafael’sMusicNotes.com  All About the Arts   September 23, 2017

Published by ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”

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