Hosting this type of production, part of the school's chamber music series, has been a long time coming. “I saw a production about three years ago that included two of our alumni,” said Mark Evans, director of the series and a piano professor at the school. “Since then I've been keen to stage this opera.
This summer I felt confident that I had the core cast made up of outstanding alumni and current students. Further, the show includes a chorus and dance — an ideal vehicle for our select choir conducted by Joseph Han, our choral director.” “Amahl and the Night Visitors” originally was commissioned by NBC in 1951 to be broadcast live on television as the opening show for the Hallmark Hall of Fame.
It was the first opera specifically written for this medium in this country. Inspired by Hieronymus Bosch's “The Adoration of the Magi” — a picture that hangs in New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art — Menotti settled on a cast of six, with the role of Amahl to be a boy. The show is in English.
Amahl is crippled and needs a crutch to walk. He also is prone to telling tales. One early evening he tells his mother he saw an amazing star “as big as a window.
” His mother does not believe him and later weeps hoping that he'll not become a beggar. After bedtime, she hears a knock at the door and asks Amahl to answer it. Behold, he sees three marvelously dressed kings who are the Magi.
The story then goes from there to become a true Christmas story, and includes.
