Opera Allsorts
AMAHL AND THE NIGHT VISITORS
A mix of tidbits and tales about Menotti's holiday classic
INSPIRED BY THE GIFT OF ART In 1951, Peter Herman Adler, NBC’s director of new opera programming commissioned composer and librettist Gian Carlo Menotti to write the first opera for television. Struggling to find a subject for the new opera, Menotti was inspired by the distant blue hills of Hieronymus Bosch’s painting The Adoration of the Magi while visiting New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Amahl and the Night Visitors was the result. Menotti considered this inspiration to be his gift from the three Magi in the painting. The original broadcast of the opera is available on YouTube.
WATCH NOW HIERONYMUS BOSCH’S THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI
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| AMAHL AND THE NIGHT VISITORS
