Relive a miracle with Resonance Works' 'Amahl and the Night Visitors'

The origins of many Christmas traditions are shrouded in the mists of time, but there is no doubt about the most popular Christmas opera.

“Amahl and the Night Visitors” was first seen on Christmas Eve 1951, when it was premiered on NBC television. The artistic range of commercial television was far more ambitious in its early days than it is now.

“Amahl” was an immediate hit, seen by millions in 1951. Legendary conductor Arturo Toscanini told composer Gian Carlo Menotti that “Amahl” was his best work. NBC continued to present it annually for more than a decade and its allied record label, RCA, issued a best-selling LP, now on CD. The opera is still performed hundreds of time every year, mostly at churches across the country.

Maria Sensi Sellner will conduct Resonance Works in Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night Visitors” on Dec. 20 and 22 at Pittsburgh’s New Hazlett Theater. The title role will be performed by Emmanuel Tsao, who hails from Memphis, Tenn., and is currently performing in a collaborative installation called “Fault Lines” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Menotti was stumped about the subject of the opera he was commissioned to write for NBC until he came across the painting “The Adoration of the Magi” by Hieronymus Bosch while walking through the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

“This is an opera for children because it tries to recapture my childhood,” Menotti commented. “You see, when I was a child I lived in Italy, and in Italy we have no Santa Claus… Our gifts were brought to us by the Three Kings, instead.”

After Menotti’s father died, his mother brought him to the Western Hemisphere, ultimately enrolling him in the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where his fellow students included Samuel Barber and Leonard Bernstein. Menotti says he became so involved with American Christmas traditions that he forgot about his Italian experiences with the Three Kings until he came across the Bosch painting.

The opera was originally set near Bethlehem. Amahl can only walk with a crutch, and lives in poverty with his mother. The Three Kings arrive on their way to give gifts to the Child, and ask if they can rest the night with Amahl and his mother. Amahl has many questions for the kings, but no gifts for the Child. When he offers his crutch he is miraculously healed, and leaves with the kings to see baby Jesus.

Professional presentations of “Amahl” in Pittsburgh were given for many years by Opera Theatre Pittsburgh, now Pittsburgh Festival Opera, but since 2014 it has been presented annually by Resonance Works at various venues.

“We’re presenting a modern setting this year, with Amahl and his mother homeless and living in a rundown park,” says the conductor.

The concerts will be completed by nonoperatic repertoire by women composers performed by the Resonance Chamber Orchestra and Festival Chorus, including Cecile Chaminade’s Flute Concerto with Lindsay Goodman as soloist, two choral works by Pulitzer Prize winning composer Jennifer Higdon, and a new setting of “O Magnum Misterium” by Nancy Galbraith.