“To This We've Come”

The Consul

Gian Carlo Menotti, composer & librettist

Whitney Morrison, soprano
Craig Terry, piano

Composer Gian Carlo Menotti (1911-2007) came to the United States from Italy in his teens to study at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music. His talent was recognized immediately, and within a decade, six of his operas had been produced. The success of The Medium on Broadway in 1947 inspired Menotti to create another opera specifically for a Broadway audience. The Consul, which premiered triumphantly in 1950, won the Pulitzer Prize and has been hugely acclaimed internationally. This opera, which ends tragically, communicates a powerful message regarding the plight of those whose freedom is suppressed by a totalitarian regime.

In an unnamed European city, Magda Sorel, living with her baby and ill mother-in-law, is terrified that the life of her fugitive husband, freedom fighter John Sorel, is in danger. Desperate for her family to flee the country, she applies repeatedly to the local consulate for visas and repeatedly encounters overwhelming, meaningless red tape and appalling insensitivity regarding her situation. The climax of the opera's second act comes when Magda—desperate to see the consul—is handed yet another set of papers to fill out. She explodes in her riveting, incomparably moving, vocally and musically formidable aria, "To this we've come." The aria reveals that Magda's child is dead, John's mother is dying, and she now believes she is in danger herself. Denouncing the consulate's inhumanity, she speaks for all those like her, ordering the consul's secretary to warn him that one day "our hearts of flame will burn your paper chains."

 

The Consul
Composed by Gian Carlo Menotti
Used by Permission of G. Schirmer, Inc. (ASCAP)

Text

Soprano

Whitney Morrison

Whitney Morrison

The soprano, a Chicago native and a Ryan Opera Center alumna, triumphed as Sister Rose in the Lyric premiere of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking (2019/20), and previously portrayed supporting roles in Die Walküre, Elektra, Idomeneo, and Rigoletto at Lyric. Additional credits include the Harris Theater’s “Beyond the Aria” series; Miss Pinkerton/The Old Maid and the Thief at the Grant Park Music Festival; an appearance at the Rochester Institute of Technology’s celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy; and Donna Anna/Don Giovanni with Chicago’s Floating Opera Company. A graduate of Alabama’s Oakwood University, Morrison earned her Master of Music degree at the Eastman School of Music and has also studied at Germany’s Neil Semer Vocal Institute and Italy’s Georg Solti Accademia di Bel Canto. Competition successes include top prizes in the National Classical Singer University Competition, the R. Nathaniel Dett Club NANM Scholarship Competition, and the Musicians Club of Women Competition. 

Pianist and Ryan Opera Center Music Director

Craig Terry

Craig Terry

The American pianist has an international performance career and recently won a GRAMMY Award for “Best Classical Solo Vocal Album” for the recording he made with Joyce DiDonato, “Songplay.” He has served as the Jannotta Family Endowed Chair music director of Lyric’s Ryan Opera Center since 2013, after having spent 11 seasons with the company as an assistant conductor. Before coming to Lyric, he was an assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera after joining its Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. Terry has performed extensively with such esteemed artists such as Jamie Barton, Stephanie Blythe, Lawrence Brownlee, Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Brian Jagde, Joseph Kaiser, Quinn Kelsey, Kate Lindsey, Ana María Martínez, Susanna Phillips, Luca Pisaroni, and Patricia Racette, among others. He has collaborated as a chamber musician with members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Lyric Opera Orchestra, Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchester, and the Pro Arte String Quartet. Terry is artistic director of “Beyond the Aria,” a recital series presented by the Harris Theater in collaboration with Lyric Opera of Chicago. His discography includes “Diva on Detour” with Patricia Racette, “As Long As There Are Songs” with Stephanie Blythe, and “Chanson d’Avril” with Nicole Cabell.

Craig Terry is The Jannotta Family Endowed Chair

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