Wartburg College’s Opera Workshop will present Gian Carlo Menotti’s Pulitzer Prize winning opera “The Consul” on Feb. 22 and 24.

The opera, directed by Brian Pfaltzgraff, associate professor of music, will begin at 7:30 p.m. both nights in McCaskey Lyceum. Tickets are $10 at the door and free for Wartburg students with an ID. All tickets are general admission, and doors will open at 7 p.m.

“The Consul” tells the story of Magda Sorel, the wife of a political dissident who is being followed and persecuted by his country’s secret police. While her husband hides from the police, Sorel must shoulder the responsibility of moving her family from her homeland to a perceived democratically friendly country.

“What she actually experiences is a consulate run by an autocratic secretary whose slavish adherence to procedure leaves no opportunity for exceptions or the opportunity to be moved to the front of the line based on need,” Pfaltzgraff said. Some contents of this production may be triggering due to its depictions of suicide. “People who come to see this will see firsthand what can happen when people, out of fear for their lives, try to come to a place they believe to be safe.”

“The Consul” won the New York Drama Critic Circle award for the Best Musical Play of 1950.

In addition to Wartburg College students, Nicholas Klemetson, organist and director of music ministry at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, will provide accompaniment for the opera.

“This is the first time in my career at Wartburg that I have had a group of student singers who are particularly well suited for a show like this,” Pfaltzgraff said. “This opera requires more than just voices, I needed students with a maturity of world view, an understanding of political events and appreciation of history that could help us tell this story.”