Menotti: Amahl and the Night Visitors

Menotti: Amahl and the Night Visitors

Menotti: Amahl and the Night Visitors
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CD Details

Brand: MENOTTI,G.C.
Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti
Conductor: Thomas Schippers
Orchestra: NBC Symphony Orchestra
Performer: Rosemary Kuhlmann
Performer: Chet Allen
Performer: Davis Aiken
Performer: Frank Monachino
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1990-10-25
Music Label: RCA
Soundtracks:
  1. Amahl! Amahl!
  2. Oh, Mother, you should go out and see!
  3. Stop bothering me!
  4. Poor Amahl!
  5. Don't cry, mother dear
  6. From far away we come
  7. Amahl...Yes, Mother
  8. Good evening! Good evening!
  9. Come in, come in!
  10. Are you a real King?
  11. This is my box
  12. Amahl, I told you not to be a nuisance!
  13. Oh, these beautiful things
  14. Have you seen a Child
  15. Amahl and the Night Visitors, opera: Shepherds! Shepherdesses! - Thomas Schippers
  16. Emily, Emily
  17. Olives and quinces
  18. Shepherds' Dance
  19. Thank you, good friends
  20. All that gold!
  21. Amahl and the Night Visitors, opera: Thief! Thief! - Thomas Schippers
  22. Don't you dare!
  23. Oh, woman, you can keep the gold
  24. Oh, no, wait
  25. I walk, Mother
  26. Do you really wan to go?
  27. Shepherds, arise!

Music reviews of Menotti: Amahl and the Night Visitors

Music Review: The first "Amahl" and the best
Rating: 5 Stars

Source: Studio recording made with the original cast on January 4 and 10, 1952.

Sound: Fairly good analog mono. It is my impression that the digital re-mastering yields a more mellow tone than that on my long-lost Lp version. At any rate, while the sound is definitely historical, it is perfectly acceptable, if heard with just a little good will.

Documentation: One-page plot summary. Track list with timings. Libretto in English.


Format: Single disk with 27 tracks, five of which are under a minute in length.

Cast: Amahl - Chet Allen; Mother - Rosemary Kuhlmann; King Kaspar - Andrew McKinley; King Melchior - David Aiken; King Balthazar - Leon Leshner; Page - Frank Monachino. Conductor - Thomas Schippers. Chorus and orchestra were skilled New York session performers associated with the NBC Television Theater.

I watched the first broadcast of this opera in glorious black-and-white on our brand new, 14-inch, RCA television set. It was Christmas Eve, 1951. I was not quite nine years old. My parents were there, dutifully attentive to officially-approved Culture, but obviously bored. I was enthralled--even though I thought the boy playing Amahl to be one of the most obnoxious creatures I had ever observed. I watched every repeat showing for years afterward.

Fourteen years later, I was in San Francisco on leave from the army. I ran into a friend who was a director. "We're doing six performances of 'Amahl,'" she said. "We desperately need another tenor in the chorus. Dress rehearsal is tonight. We open with a matinee tomorrow. Here's the score. Learn it." I did, sort of, although I never could get Menotti's grocery lists quite right: "Citrons and lemons, / musk and pomegranates, / goat cheese and walnuts, / figs and cucumbers, / this is all we shepherds can offer you." Yeah, I'd get that and all its variants out while trying not to trip over my sandals, stuffed lamb and shepherd's crook, sure.

Thirty-six years after that, while waiting for the start of "Die Meistersinger" at the San Francisco Opera, I struck up a conversation with the lady sitting next to me. It turned out that she had played the Mother in the production into which I had parachuted. Neither one of us could quite remember the other.

"Amahl" is no great opera. Compared to "Don Giovanni" or even "The Pearl Fishers," it is puny and pallid. But beside some of the bottom-feeders on the operatic B- and C-lists, "Lakme" or "Fedora," say, it's a masterpiece! Over the decades, man and boy, I've been exposed to many productions of "Amahl," but this is the one that sticks in my mind. I have heard other, crisper recordings but never a better performance. I cannot conceive of buying any other sound-only version. The singers are not the greatest but they are good. Unlike all their successors, they offer the indefinable sense that they are present at the emergence of a new-born wonder.

Five stars.

(I still don't much care for the kid who sings Amahl, though.)
More Menotti: Amahl and the Night Visitors free music reviews:
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Description of Menotti: Amahl and the Night Visitors

No Description Available
No Track Information Available
Media Type: CD
Artist: MENOTTI,G.C.
Title: AMAHL & THE NIGHT VISITORS-COM
Street Release Date: 07/16/1999
Domestic
Genre: OPERA/OPERETTA

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