Amahl and the Night Visitors
Music by Gian Carlo Menotti · libretto by Gian Carlo Menotti · premiered 1951 · at NBC Opera Theatre
Amahl and the Night Visitors is an opera in one act by Gian Carlo Menotti with an original English libretto by the composer. It was commissioned by NBC and first performed by the NBC Opera Theatre on December 24, 1951, in New York City at NBC Studio 8H in Rockefeller Center, where it was broadcast live on television from that venue as the debut production of the Hallmark Hall of Fame. It was the first opera specifically composed for television in the United States.
Text from the Wikipedia article "Amahl and the Night Visitors", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the Composer
Gian Carlo Menotti (; Italian: [ˈdʒaŋ ˈkarlo meˈnɔtti]; July 7, 1911 – February 1, 2007) was an Italian composer, librettist, director, and playwright who is primarily known for his output of 25 operas. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept his Italian citizenship and never officially became an American citizen. One of the most frequently performed opera composers of the 20th century, he wrote his most successful works in the 1940s and 1950s. Highly influenced by Giacomo Puccini and Modest Mussorgsky, Menotti further developed the verismo tradition of opera in the post-World War II era. Rejecting atonality and the aesthetic of the Second Viennese School,…
Text from the Wikipedia article "Gian Carlo Menotti", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Other Operas by Gian Carlo Menotti
- Amelia Goes to the Ball (1936)
- Help, Help, the Globolinks! (1968)
- La Loca (1979)