Amahl and the Night Visitors by Italian-born American composer Gian Carlo Menotti Directed by Stephanie Vlahos.
In the 1950s, Menotti was the toast of opera. His outpourings of cannily staged, post-Puccini verismo gathered two Pulitzer Prizes, ran on Broadway and television, and generated the hope that a viable repertoire of American operas was being established at last. But Menotti’s time passed swiftly.
Critics have not always been kind to Menotti, but that’s not unusual. Menotti’s operas were succinct and spoke to truths of a period with humility and commonality.
Based on Italian folk tales of the Nativity and Epiphany, Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors is a retelling of the story of the Magi from the point of view of a young disabled boy named Amahl, who lives in poverty with his widowed mother near Bethlehem.
Directed by Stephanie Vlahos at the Pasadena Playhouse
Amahl and the Night Visitors’ return to the Pasadena Playhouse stage for one weekend only is red-letter news indeed, for opera fans and newbies alike regardless of age.
Stage Scene LA
Once again impeccably directed by Stephanie Vlahos and performed by a stellar cast headed by Suzanna Guzman and Caleb Glickman, the Gian Carlo Menotti one-act is a one-of-a-kind holiday treasure.
Amahl and the Night Visitors was preceded in this production by a reading of Dylan Thomas’ “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” by actor Malcolm McDowell in which one quickly lost track of the prose and bathed in the music of McDowell’s gracefully etched voice – the same effect that Thomas’s own classic reading produces.
Singer-turned-stage-director Stephanie Vlahos has become Intimate Opera’s artistic director. As director of this straightforward production, she takes Menotti’s word and her company’s name seriously. The home of Amahl and his mother was sparely furnished with the appropriate look of dire poverty. Making the entrance of the lavishly costumed Three Kings all the more startling.
LA Times Opera review: ‘Amahl and the Night Visitors’ at the Pasadena Playhouse
Amahl and the Night Visitors
This is an opera for children because it tries to recapture my own childhood. You see, when I was a child I lived in Italy, and in Italy we have no Santa Claus. I suppose that Santa Claus is much too busy with American children to be able to handle Italian children as well. Our gifts were brought to us by the Three Kings, instead.
I actually never met the Three Kings—it didn’t matter how hard my little brother and I tried to keep awake at night to catch a glimpse of the Three Royal Visitors, we would always fall asleep just before they arrived. But I do remember hearing them. I remember the weird cadence of their song in the dark distance; I remember the brittle sound of the camel’s hooves crushing the frozen snow; and I remember the mysterious tinkling of their silver bridles.
My favorite king was King Melchior, because he was the oldest and had a long white beard. My brother’s favorite was King Kaspar. He insisted that this king was a little crazy and quite deaf. I don’t know why he was so positive about his being deaf. I suspect it was because dear King Kaspar never brought him all the gifts he requested. He was also rather puzzled by the fact that King Kaspar carried the myrrh, which appeared to him as a rather eccentric gift, for he never quite understood what the word meant.