Theatre Register
The Consul

The Consul

Shows · The Consul

Gian-Carlo Menotti’s Cold War opera The Consul won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical and the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for music. It was a powerful self-described “musical drama” that depicted an unnamed totalitarian country whose citizens are persecuted by secret police and a Kafkaesque bureaucracy.

Opened
1950
Performances
269
Type
Musical
Era
Golden Age
Music: Gian Carlo MenottiLyrics: Gian Carlo MenottiBook: Gian Carlo Menotti

Productions2 on Broadway

1903 Princess Theatre Original. January 19, 1903 · predates this show 24 performances
1950 Ethel Barrymore Theatre Revival. March 15, 1950 · Gian Carlo Menotti 269 performances

Every Broadway staging held in broadway-data, sourced to IBDB. 1 of these predate the show itself and are almost certainly a different work of the same name. Shown, marked, not merged. West End runs are not yet held.

Licensing not confirmed

Rights We have not been able to confirm the publisher.

Read from the licensor's own pages and catalogues. Rights move, and an empty row means we have not confirmed a publisher, not that the show cannot be licensed.

In the literature14 passages

Most shows were lighhearted in nature, and it’s notable the critics often used such words as carnival, jubilee, fandango, hoedown, haymaker, and festival to describe not just a particular song or dance sequence but also to characterize their take-away, overall impressions of the musicals they reviewed. But if fun was t… book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p2

Pulitzer Prize (1950): Best Music (The Consul ) book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p37

Engel’s list of fifteen Broadway “models of excellence” includes The Consul. book:enchanted-evenings-the-broadway-musical-from-show-boat-block-geoffrey-oxford-new#p43

The Consul is listed as an example of Broadway opera, described as an all-sung drama in the European operatic tradition. book:showtime-a-history-of-the-broadway-musical-theatre-larry-stempel#p405

The Consul (1950) was Menotti's first full-length opera and possibly his finest work. book:showtime-a-history-of-the-broadway-musical-theatre-larry-stempel#p415

The Consul, along with Menotti's four other operas produced on Broadway between 1947 and 1958, might serve as illustrations of what Broadway operas generally were not. book:showtime-a-history-of-the-broadway-musical-theatre-larry-stempel#p416

Passages naming this show, found by keyword across 178 books. Where this show turns up in the literature, not curated trivia about it.

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