OPERA REVIEW : Gian Carlo Menotti’s ‘The Consul’ Is Revived by USC Company

In a week in which 200,000 American Jews and supporters marched in Washington, to demand that the Soviet Union allow the emigration of an estimated 400,000 Jewish refuseniks, Gian Carlo Menotti’s tear-jerker melodrama about repression in a police state, “The Consul,” assumed a special poignancy--even in such an earnest but unimaginatively acted version as given Thursday by the University of Southern California Opera.

The problem was that the young singers didn’t really inhabit their roles. Baritone Hector Vasquez as John Sorel never made a forceful enough presence to convey a sense of political commitment to the death or justify sacrifices made for him, and sang colorlessly. As his wife, Magda, soprano Patricia Taylor began with such knotted-up tension that she was not able to develop the character further, and had little beauty of tone to give in “To this we’ve come.”

However, Bernice Brightbill made a sympathetic Mother, and Cynthia Clayton a tough Secretary.

Frans Boerlage staged the production aptly, focusing upon making the struggle of Magda and the other would-be emigres credible. But he miscalculated in having one character obtain her visa from the secretary with a bribe. This shifted Menotti’s emphasis from Kafka-esque bureaucracy to sordid corruption and conflicted with later scenes in which the secretary is genuinely haunted by images of waiting figures and tries to assist Sorel escape the secret police.

Also a problem was Randall Behr’s conducting the small pit band with such sweep that he often overpowered the singers.

The realistic set credited to Giatheatrics and Don Abrams’ moody lighting created a properly chilling environment for the consulate outer office and allowed an eerie transformation in the suicide-dream sequence.

“The Consul” will be repeated at 8 tonight and Sunday, with alternating casts.