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Issue: Vol 1, No 2, Winter 2001
Amahl Goes on the Road
The annual UKOT/LOS production of "Amahl and the Night Visitors" hit the road this year for a total of 10 performances,
bringing Gian Carlo Menotti's charming little Christmas–time opera to hundreds of children and their parents in Pikeville,
Hazard, Lexington, and Versailles. The story of the crippled shepherd boy and his mother who are surprised by a nighttime
visit from the Three Kings Balthazar, Melchior, and Kaspar, traveling to Bethlehem to adore the newborn Christ Child, had
its origin in two events in Menotti's own childhood: his fascination with the popular Italian tradition of the mysterious
Three Kings who (like our own Santa Claus) visit children's homes on Christmas Eve to leave gifts, and Menotti's own recovery
from lameness. When the composer was commissioned by the National Broadcasting Company in 1951 to write a Christmas Opera,
he found himself stymied for just the right story until he chanced upon a 15th Century painting of "The Adoration of the Magi"
in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Oriental splendor of the Kings and the tender smile of the Virgin awoke childhood
memories, and the opera began to take shape in his imagination. In an essay written for the original cast recording of the opera
for RCA, following its television premier on Christmas Eve, 1951, Menotti reminisced, "I never actually 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 mysterious tinkling of their silver bridles; I remember the brittle sound of the camel's
hooves crushing the frozen snow." Menotti wove these crystalline aural impressions into the charming, deceptively simple vocal
and orchestral lines of the music and his libretto captures a 'magical realism' view of a child's wonder at a mysterious blazing
star, his amazement at the splendor and majesty of the Three Kings who appear out of the night bearing not only their gifts
of gold, incense, and myrrh for the Christ Child but also a nasty–tempered parrot in a cage and (a poor child's dream) a box full
of "sweet, black licorice!". When Amahl asks the Kings to take his only possession, his hand–made crutch, as a gift to the Christ
Child, his crippled leg is miraculously healed; this powerful moment in the opera recapulates the inexplicable cure of Menotti's
own crippled right leg. He recalls in his essay, "My nanny took me to the miraculous Madonna at Sacro Monte in Varese, the priest
blessed me, and I walked."
Only 50 minutes long, "Amahl" is the perfect 'first opera' for children. Its soaring melodies and solemn chants make it a delight
for the ear, the richly–garbed Kings and their Page make it a feast for the eyes, and the sweet simplicity of the story deftly
captures the miracle of Christmas: the gift of love. The principal roles in the 2001 production were double–cast: UK Vocal Music
students Jocelyn Godwin and Amanda Bradley (Amahl), Jeryl Cunningham and Katherine Sherwood (his Mother), Stephen Carney and Jeremy
Cady (Kaspar), Edward White Jr., and William Koehler (Melchior), and Brian MacGilvray and Earl Hazell, Jr. (Balthazar) performed in
alternate shows, joined by the Page (John Krol). The Shepherds' Chorus for the Lexington and Versailles performances consisted of
UK Vocal Music students, but the two performances in Pikeville and the four performances in Hazard, provided an enjoyable opportunity
for local high school and college chorus singers to perform with the UK musicians. At each performance the chorus was joined by
the alternate principal singers.
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