Amahl and the Night Visitors Revisited

This post was written by Peter Gilmour, and posted on December 11, 2007 | Filed Under uncategorized | Double-click any word for more info | View other posts by Peter Gilmour | | For info on this author, visit http://homepages.luc.edu/~pgilmou/

The 20^th century has produced an incredible array of holiday resources, some pretty bizarre. Remember flocked trees, some orange or lavender? Remember stainless-steel Christmas trees? Then there was a reindeer named Rudolph, who permanently nosed his way into Christmas.

Amid awful manifestations of Christmas are other awe-filled representations of this holiday. My personal favorite is Gian Carlo Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night Visitors.” This one-act opera in English was commissioned by NBC in 1951 to be aired over the young technology named television. It is the story of an overnight stay by the Magi at Amahl and his mother’s home as they follow the star toward Christ’s birthplace. These Magi, far from plaster figurines found in many crib scenes, are wonderfully human, delightfully eccentric, and faithfully driven people. Amahl, the young crippled boy, is a bit of a space cadet, a daydreamer. His single-parent mother, exhausted from work, has little enthusiasm for her son’s imaginative thoughts. What a great crew of humanity to birth and berth a messiah.

Back in 1951 television transmission was black and white, and confined to a TV screen in most people’s homes no larger than 14 inches. Such was the venue for my first encounter with “Amahl and the Night Visitors.” It intrigued me then, and now, more than 50 years later, this deceptively simple opera still mesmerizes me.

Menotti’s exploration into the birth of Christ is a great example of midrash, a term less familiar to Christians than to Jews who developed this unique form of storytelling.

Midrashic stories enhance biblical stories, imaginatively filling in blank spaces, expanding on underdeveloped of missing events, or casting them in a contemporary situation or language. Midrash explores biblical stories, not through analysis, but through imagination. Menotti is a master at midrash.

It’s been a while since “Amahl and the Night Visitors” has appeared on television, but live performances of Menotti’s opera happen during the Christmas season. I was fortunate to see the Ars Viva Symphony Orchestra’s production of “Amahl and the Night Visitors” recently in Skokie, Illinois. This production transformed the black and white, small screen, original TV version into a colorful, full-stage, live performance. Once again, I was transfixed by Menotti’s miraculous music and story.

Trash your memories of flocked and stainless-steel trees. Silence the song about a red-nosed reindeer. Reread Matthew and Luke’s birth of Christ stories. Listen to Menotti’s midrashic Christmas story known as “Amahl and the Night Visitors.”

Merry Christmas.

Comments

One Response to “Amahl and the Night Visitors Revisited”

Joel Buursma on December 14th, 2007 6:01 pm

I was introduced to “Amahl” via my wife, who had many good memories of it in her family. I think it is a charming and well-told story — one that can really find a home in one’s heart. The story is “apochryphal,” to be sure, but it is not impossible to believe that it might have occurred. Since the Jesus that inspired that story is the same Jesus that is alive today, I would also hope that this fanciful story might encourage people to think about the Jesus of their lives as well.

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