Amahl and the Night Visitors

One of the things I have always enjoyed about Christmas is the classical music that becomes available.  Handel’s Messiah is a perennial favorite, and we have seen many live performances over the years.  My Dad was an organist and choir director in several churches over the years, and I vividly remember a performance at the Hamden Plains Methodist Church in Connecticut where he served during the 1950s and 1960s.  It was a small but very talented choir, and I listened to them practice week after week from the balcony of the church; this would take place on Friday evenings after Junior Choir (to which I belonged) had finished rehearsing.  The Christmas portion of Messiah is burned deep in my memory.

Then there is Bach.  Not too many years ago, we drove to Asheville and saw an excellent performance of J. S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio.  Other favorites by Bach that I enjoy this time of year are the Cantata Sleepers Wake (BWV 140) and the Magnificat (BWV 243), which I urge readers of this blog to find on YouTube.  There are some particularly fine performances by the Netherlands Bach Society.

I also grew up listening to another Christmas classic, Amahl and the Night Visitors, by Gian Carlo Menotti.  It was the first opera commissioned for television and was shown for many years on NBC beginning in 1951.  Martha and I saw a memorable performance in All Souls Church in Biltmore a few decades ago.  And my daughter and I drove to Asheville for several years to take in the lovely annual performances by the Asheville Lyric Opera in Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, something of a tradition for us.  I am thinking that it finally came to an end when the boy soprano’s voice changed (as mine did when I was in the Junior Choir).  It is truly a wonderful piece of music, and I found an especially good performance on YouTube by the Ash Lawn Opera of Charlottesville, VA and listened to it this afternoon, a rainy and gloomy day in Atlantic Beach.  The libretto is pure poetry:

Oh woman, you may keep the gold.
The child we seek doesn’t need our gold.
On love, on love alone he will build his kingdom.
His pierced hand will hold no scepter.
His haloed head will wear no crown.
His might will not be built on your toil.
Swifter than lightning,
He will soon walk among us.
He will bring us new life,
And receive our death,
And the keys to his city belong to the poor.

It is a touching story, and one that I never tire of seeing.  And the music is wonderful, too, filled with melodies from the Mideast and tight three-part harmonies between the three kings, the "night visitors."  I learned today that Menotti based the opera on his childhood memories of Christmas in Italy.

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 am so thankful that Handel and Bach and Menotti left these beautiful pieces of music for us to enjoy.  And that none of them knew who Santa Claus was, wondered why Rudolph was never included in any "Reindeer Games," or wondered what kind of magic resided in Frosty's old top hat.