Music: Red Tape

With his hit shows The Medium and The Telephone (TIME, June 30, 1947), Gian-Carlo Menotti had already proved that he could sell pocket-sized opera to Broadway. Last week a first-night Broadway audience bought his first full three-acter, The Consul, and bravoed for more.

Menotti, a lean, dark-eyed, hungry-looking man of 38, got the idea for his new opera from reading about a refugee who committed suicide when she was turned down for a visa. Says Menotti: "I know we must have some bureaucracy . . . but I cannot abide little people who, given a little power, wield it inflexibly and...

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