Kara Shay Thomson in rehearsal for “The Consul” at Florida Grand Opera. Photo by Brittany Mazzurco. By most reckonings, the season has already ended, but for a few Miami organizations, this time of year is when things turn somewhat edgier. Two multiple-event programs begin this week, one of them tonight, and the other on Saturday. Florida Grand Opera: The chill of the Cold War is all over The Consul, Gian-Carlo Menotti’s 1950 opera of a dissident’s wife up against the secret police and an indifferent bureaucracy. Staged using the Seattle Opera’s 2014 production, which is dominated by an oppressive set in which floor-to-ceiling file cabinets seem to close in on the unfortunate diplomatic appellants in the consul’s office who are forced to wait for long stretches of time and fill out mountains of paperwork, The Consul is a powerful and moving meditation on dehumanization. Set somewhere in Europe in the mid-20th century, it concerns Magda Sorel, whose husband John has gone into hiding from the authorities in his own country by slipping into another. Magda goes to see the consul of that country to seek asylum, but is constantly thwarted by the consul’s gatekeeper, an officious secretary. There is tragedy at home, too, including the death of her infant son and her aged mother, and ultimately, when John is arrested, Magda is left without anything, even hope. After a sensational debut in its premiere year, in which it won a sheaf of major prizes including the Pulitzer, The Consul has been best-known in recent years for its excerpts: the mother’s lullaby (“I shall find for you shells and stars”), and the soliloquy by Magda, whose “To this we’ve come” is both a condemnation of the police state and a rumination on the facelessness of the individual in any system that reduces people to numbers on a page. Kara Shay Thomson sings the role of Magda, with baritone Keith Phares as John. The important role of John’s mother is sung by Victoria Livengood, a longtime collaborator with the Italian-born Menotti (who was 95 when he died in 2007), and the secretary will be sung by Carla Jablonski. Andrew Bisantz, a familiar face at the FGO, conducts, and the stage direction is by Julie Maykowski. The Consul has been making its way back to the regular repertory — there were productions in Santa Barbara and Paris last year, as well as Seattle, according to Operabase — but it’s rare to see a full performance, and American opera devotees will want to be there. The Consul will be performed May 9-16 at the Adrienne Arsht Center, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami. For more information, call 800-741-1010 or visit www.fgo.org. Piffaro, the Philadelphia-based Renaissance wind band. Seraphic Fire: The early-music movement that began in Britain in the 1960s has steadily flowered over the past 50 years to a high point today, where sensational period-instrument and vocal ensembles enliven much of the concert life of the United States. One such group is the Philadelphia-based Renaissance wind band Piffaro, which regularly plays concerts featuring instruments such as recorders, shawms and sackbuts, along with other sound makers that have been eclipsed by their more modern descendants, such as clarinets, oboes and trombones. Later this month, Piffaro will play concerts back home with a vocal quartet called The Laughing Bird, in which it will celebrate the 500th birthday of composer Cipriano de Rore, but this week, they’re in town with Seraphic Fire to play and sing a contemporary American work, Vespers, by the Philadelphia-based Kile Smith. The music is gently modern, but with its Renaissance instrument backing, it has a beautifully distinctive archaic sound that manages to convey a profound spirituality (here is an excerpt, with Piffaro and The Crossing; it’s a movement that uses the traditional text “Wie schon leuchtet der Morgenstern” ). Seraphic Fire, a finalist for a Knight Arts Challenge grant in which it is seeking to commission 15 new pieces for its 15th season, always manages to come up with distinctive programming, and the Smith’s Vespers is a good example of the current excellence now abroad in the world of American choral writing. This is particularly true of sacred music, and Smith’s investigation of the centuries-old vespers service should provide an unusual and moving way to see out Seraphic Fire’s season. Seraphic Fire and Piffaro perform tonight at 7:30 p.m. at St. Sophia’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral, 2401 S.W. 3rd Ave., Miami; 7:30 p.m. on Friday at St. Phillip’s Episcopal Church, 1121 Andalusia Ave., Coral Gables; 8 p.m. on Saturday at All Saints Episcopal Church, 333 Tarpon Dr., Fort Lauderdale; and 4 p.m. on Sunday at All Souls Episcopal Church, 4025 Pine Tree Dr., Miami Beach. For more information, call 305-285-9060 or visit www.seraphicfire.org.