Uncouth Reflections

Eddie Pensier writes:

I hope all our readers had a merry Christmas.

Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors was the first opera composed especially for television. It was commissioned by NBC for a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation in 1951, and became a holiday standard not long afterwards. It is still a staple of community theaters for both its inspirational story and its (uncharacteristic for 20th-century opera) straightforwardly tonal melodic style.

Hieronymous Bosch, Adoration of the Magi. The painting that inspired Menotti to write Amahl. (click to enlarge)

The original NBC production, originally aired live, was shown annually throughout the 50s and 60s but went out of vogue. In 1978, a new production was filmed, starring Canadian soprano Teresa Stratas, American bass-baritone Giorgio Tozzi, and Anglo-Jamaican bass Willard White, conducted by Spaniard Jesús López-Cobos. The interior scenes were shot at London’s Pinewood Studios, while the exteriors were filmed on location in Israel.

Ignore if you can the poor sound quality, which desperately needs remastering, and focus on the gorgeous music which owes debts to Ravel and Barber (Menotti’s real-life partner), and the stunning vocal performances. The subsequent five parts are also on YouTube. Fans of the Bosch pictured above will be tickled to note that the Magi in the movie are dressed exactly as they are in the painting.

In one of the great epic fails in moviemaking history, the BBC filmed and edited a completely new version of Amahl in 2002. It was awaiting broadcast before it occurred to someone to ask if the copyright had been secured before shooting started. It hadn’t, as it turned out. So there is a multi-million-dollar film of this opera that won’t see the light of day for another 50 years or so.