Amahl And The Night Visitors

About

Italian-American composer Gian Carlo Menotti (1911–2007) wrote over twenty operas in his long and prolific career. His works have garnered both critical acclaim and popular support, twice winning the Pulitzer Prize for Music as well as the prestigious New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for best musical play. Menotti is considered by many to be the most important American opera composer, and is often called “the American Puccini.” Due to the huge success of The Medium (1946), Menotti received the first ever commission for a television opera from NBC, resulting in his well-known Amahl and the Night Visitors (1951). This beloved work was premiered by the NBC Opera Theatre on December 24, 1951, in New York City at NBC studio 8H in Rockefeller Center, and was broadcast every year at Christmas time on NBC for over a decade. Since its composition, Amahl has remained among the most frequently performed operas in the United States today.