Amahl

In today's news, I saw that opera composer Gian Carlo Menotti has died, at age 95, and it made me think back to my childhood, when watching his best-known opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, was a big part of our family Christmas tradition. The television opera was shown on The Alcoa Hour every year between 1951 and 1966 - which certainly coincides with my growing-up years. I'm not sure we watched every single year, but it has to have been close. We never owned a recording, but I find I can recall many of the arias and remember a lot of the visual settings and movements of the actors, from the mother chastising Amahl for telling fibs, to the arrival of the three kings ( "This is my box! this is my box! I never travel without my box!"...."and in the third drawer I keep...licorice!!") to the sentimental ending when Amahl goes off with the kings to Bethlehem.

It's odd, how ingrained memories like this become, and how you don't even consider them again until something reminds you. I never realized it, but whenever I think of "the star in the east" my mental picture comes from the opening scene of that television special, as old now as I am. I had no idea that I'd internalized that music so much, nor had I ever thought, at the time or since, about the loosely-Arab setting of the opera itself. I remember some protests by my father in later years, when he really thought he'd like to watch something else, and I remember how some of the lines became a joke between my mother and me - she had a funny, somewhat sick sense of humor that she kept mostly under wraps, but we'd look at each other at certain moments and one of us would mime, "I can walk! I can walk!": Amahl's cry when offers his only possession, his crutch, to the kings to take to the Christ Child, and is miraculously healed.

Amahl was so 50s, wasn't it? But that's what I grew up on: musical comedies, black and white television, Ed Sullivan. Gian Carlo Menotti was criticized for his sentimentality, even schlockiness - the comments made it into his obituary. What I never realized until right now is that it was Amahl that first made me appreciate opera, growing up in a culture where that art form was not even on the radar. But my father was a fine singer, as was his sister, and he always remarked on the better voices we'd hear on the television or the radio. I learned to listen and to think about the differences, and eventually to start to try to see what it was about certain music - especially vocal music - that moved me so deeply. That very eclectic musical background, gratefully, also kept me from becoming a musical snob: I enjoyed hearing Leslie Uggams as much as Mario Lanza or Beverly Sills, and still do.

There was a long hiatus without any performances after 1966, and later on, a new version of Amahl was released starring Teresa Stratas, set in the Holy Land. We watched it and didn't like it; it felt too forced, too produced; too contrived. There was something perfect about the original cast. And other people must have agreed: the new production never became popular like the first one had. I hope Gian Carlo Menotti wasn't hurt by the criticism, and knew how much pleasure he had given to families like ours, but I wonder: I think he wanted to be considered a top-flight opera composer, and he never really made it. He inhabited a strange place in-between musical comedy and opera, perhaps, during a time in American history that was receptive. I'm sure I'd find Amahl embarrassingly sentimental now, but it might not keep me from getting weepy at the same moments, when people at the extremes of poverty and wealth are both transformed by revealing their humanity to each other. It's sad that we've become so cynical.

Comments

[Bitterroot]

"All that gold...all that gold...do rich people know?"

We listened to Amahl every Christmas Eve. I tried to institute this tradition in my own family, but my children were taken aback by my predictable weeping at certain parts, and to this day I can't listen without tears. Tears for Amahl, tears for an era and people long gone.

[Bitterroot]

Postscript: thank you for prompting me to relive my own moments with Amahl, Beth. I am off to iTunes to download this very precious part of my own history.

[marja-leena]

I love opera, but I'm not familiar with Menotti. Amahl does sound vaguely familiar, I must find that. Thanks for tweaking memories of the 50's!

[MB]

"This is my box! this is my box! I never travel without my box!"

We didn't have a TV, but the music is stuck in my head — particularly that phrase because it became a little family joke while passing out presents.

[peter]

I only watched Amahl once or twice, though I think we had to sing a couple of songs from the opera in chorus, but I think it was probably one of the things that conditioned me to get teary-eyed about small miracles of community feeling or generosity.

Nowadays I have a friend who is quite vocal about his scorn for Andrew Lloyd Weber. I have no opinion on the subject, but I doubt Lloyd Weber suffers much on his way to the bank. Likewise, people might grouse about Menotti, but sentiment really does connect with people a lot better than with critics -- and who are you trying to reach, anyway?

[beth]

Good point, Peter. Amahl's generosity of spirit probably conditioned me, in a good way, at an early age. It's that old sense of "go and do likewise" - a message one doesn't necessarily need to receive in a church.

[Deborah Kimbell]

Beth,

I was also remembering the yearly viewing of Amahl. But, clod that I am, my biggest memory was of how my brother and I would drive my mother out of her mind over the next few days by singing everything we said. A la, "Maaaay I have another COOOOOKIE, mother DARlinggggggg?" " Shut the reFRIGeraTOR DOOR, you ignorAMOUS" "YOUUUU ARRRRE SITTTTTTTING IN my SEEEEEEAT-leavenow!"

We couldn't figure out why people made such a big deal of studying opera, as clearly based on our example, it was a cinch to turn in a topnotch performance.

dgk

[beth]

Hey Deb, nice to see you here! Thanks for the comment and for making me laugh - it's really funny, even if your mother didn't think so after a few days!