A resonant theme and an abundance of student talent define the 2025 Hillman Opera production at
the State University of New York at Fredonia.
The Hillman Memorial Music Association, in collaboration with the Fredonia School of Music
and the Department of Theatre and Dance, present four performances of Gian Carlo Menotti’s
“The Consul” from Nov. 13 to 16 in the Robert W. Marvel Theatre on the Fredonia campus.
Tickets are available online 24/7 at https://www.fredonia.edu/about/ticket-office. Tickets may also
be purchased on Monday, Wednesday or Friday by phone at 716-673-3501 or in person at the
Campus Ticket Office in the Williams Center from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Hillman Producer Don Marrazzo describes “The Consul” as a musical and theatrical masterpiece.
“The composer and librettist, Gian Carlo Menotti, wanted the work to be viewed as a piece of
theatre set to music, so he intentionally called ‘The Consul’ a ‘musical drama’ instead of an
opera,” Marrazzo said. “Menotti had an instinctive feeing for high suspense, and ‘The Consul’ is a
theatrical thriller that feels like the operatic version of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.”
Set around an enigmatic consulate, the producer said “The Consul” constructs a haunting world in
which a family’s desperate attempt to flee totalitarian rule is met with indifferent bureaucracy.
Performed in English the opera is set in three acts.