Three Kings in 50 Minutes

Gian-Carlo Menotti believes that "any subject is good for opera if the composer feels it so intensely he must sing it out." Standing before Hieronymous Bosch's The Adoration of the Magi one day in Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art, Menotti felt the old intensity welling up inside. He found himself thinking about miracles of faith, and of his own childhood lameness which was cured--miraculously, he believes--when he was four. As he stood there, he knew he had the subject for his seventh opera.

This week a Christmas Eve audience watched the world premiere of Amahl and the Night Visitors on the largest TV hookup (35 stations) that NBC has ever strung together for opera. Like most Menotti works, Amahl is a one-man show--music, libretto and stage direction by the composer. The story is a simple Menotti mixture of melodrama and pathos, with more than enough invention to fill out 50 minutes.

Amahl, a crippled boy, and his mother live in a rude hut. The three kings, traveling toward Bethlehem, ask lodging for the night. The desperately needy mother tries to steal some of their gold as they sleep, and is caught redhanded. As he did in The Consul, Menotti then makes his story point with dramatic directness. Sings King Melchior (Baritone David Aiken):

Oh, woman, you can keep the gold; The Child "we seek doesn't need our gold. On love, on love alone He will build His Kingdom.

The mother (Soprano Rosemary Kuhlmann) radiantly refuses the gold ("For such a King I waited all my life"). Crippled Amahl impulsively offers his crutch as a gift for the newborn child, and as he does so is miraculously cured. He goes off in the morning with the three kings to Bethlehem.

The music is distinctively Menottian --sometimes obvious but always packed with powerful melodic appeal. Composing for a twelve-year-old star was a problem. One choice was to keep all the singing roles simple and "wide-eyed"; another was to keep the boy's part easy, the others more florid. Menotti chose middle ground, and although he has some difficult singing (and acting) to do, curly-haired and clear-voiced little Chet Allen of Princeton's Columbus Boychoir carries it off beautifully. Menotti has no peer when it comes to setting the English language to music and, as always, makes every word understandable.

The first opera ever to be commissioned for TV, and first to be sponsored (Hallmark Cards), Amahl was given a production of care and quality, with Bosch-like sets and costumes by topnotch Designer Eugene Berman. Next step for Amahl: a stage premiere at the Indiana University Opera Workshop in February. After that, Menotti is thinking about the possibility of its being double-billed (perhaps with The Medium') at New York's City Center Opera.

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