Amahl and the Night Visitors

In 1950, Peter Herman Adler, artistic director of the NBC Opera Theatre, commissioned composer Gian-Carlo Menotti (1911–2007) to create the first opera for the American television audience. This proved no easy task, but Menotti’s exceptional talent — and a bit of inspiration, — led to his composition of an opera for the child, and for the faith, in each of us.

First broadcast on Christmas Eve 1951, Amahl and the Night Visitors quickly developed into a holiday favorite. The opera became one of the most frequently performed worldwide despite, within the canon of opera, its noticeable brevity of only fifty minutes.

Menotti found inspiration in Hieronymus Bosch’s Adoration of the Magi, exhibited in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Menotti spoke about his moment of deepest inspiration:

“I was walking, one afternoon, rather gloomily, through the Metropolitan Museum, and I chanced to stop in front of this painting by Hieronymus Bosch. And as I was looking at it, suddenly I heard again the weird song of the Three Kings. And I suddenly realized that they had come back to me, and they had brought me a gift.”

I clearly recall holidays of the past when our family would gather to watch this always magical tale unfold before us. In the timeless story, a widow and her troubled, disabled child encounter three wealthy night visitors making their way East following a certain star. Each individual finds themselves forever changed by the time shared within the walls of a humble shelter.

This opera teaches numerous lessons including humility, generosity, love, community, and faith. The story encompasses so many of the basic tenets of all faiths and, in those terms, provides a gift for all.