Christmas Double Bill
Amahl and the Night Visitors
The tender, heart warming story of Amahl and the Night Visitors, is one of the most popular of American operas. It is performed internationally every Christmas season and remains one of the most frequently performed operas of the 20th century.
Expressly written for television it premiered on NBC on Christmas Eve, 1951 and was repeated thereafter for sixteen Christmas seasons. It has become an annual tradition for many in the US to view this magical musical production featuring the poor crippled shepherd boy, his devoted mother and the knock on the door which changed their lives forever.
Amahl and the Night Visitors was written by the Italian composer Gian Carlo Menotti who as a young boy became lame. The doctors had no cure for him. He was taken to be blessed at the holy Sanctuary of Sacro Monte and thereafter, miraculously, the young Menotti was cured of lameness.
In 1951 when NBC commissioned the 40 year old Menotti to write a Christmas opera he could not come up with a subject. He despaired until one day, while strolling through the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, he chanced upon and was inspired by the famous painting “The Adoration of the Magi.” The idea of the Night Visitors was born and in less than two months Menotti finished the score. He wrote into it some of the magical sounds he remembered from his youth during St. Nicholas's festive visits to his mountain village in Italy where he was born.
Only an hour in length the one act opera “Amahl” with its beautiful score and touching libretto (the opera is sung in English) is appealing to all ages and musical backgrounds. It was written specifically for young imaginations which can easily relate to a child with a head full of dreams. It remains an inspiring story of how faith, charity, unselfish love and good deeds can work miracles.
The Little Sweep
The Little Sweep is a morality tale in which Sam the sweep boy is sold into service and bullied by his elders in a manner reminiscent of Peter Grimes. Thus the work embodies a rounded and involving theatrical experience, introducing young audiences to the conventions of opera by means of a simple yet affecting story with which they can sympathise and identify just as Young Persons Guide To The Orchestra introduced children to the orchestra. That Britten undoubtedly succeeded in his aim is demonstrated by the work’s universal appeal and popularity.
The housekeeper Miss Baggott shows the sweepmaster Black Bob, his assistant Clem and the new sweepboy Sam where they must start. Black Bob and Clem send the tearful Sam up the chimney and leave him to it. But he gets stuck, and his cries are heard by the children of the house, Juliet, Gay and Sophie Brook, and their visiting friends John, Hugh and Tina Crome. Having rescued the filthy little boy from the chimney, they decide to rescue him from the sweep too. First they make it look as if Sam has run off, then they hide him from Miss Baggott and the returning sweeps. Afterwards, when the coast is clear, they let the Crome's kind-hearted nursery-maid Rowan into their secret, and together they wash, feed and clothe Sam and plot how to get him back home. The next morning Rowan and the children hide Sam in a trunk they are taking with them and smuggle him out of the house.
