By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News
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Opera Posse: Amahl and the Night Visitors
December 10, 2011 at the Pasadena Playhouse
Next performances: Today at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Tomorrow at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
Information: www.operaposse.com
Suzanna Guzmán stars as the Mother and Caleb Glickman as Amahl in Opera Posse’s production of “Amahl and the Night Visitors” (image from last year); the opera is playing this weekend at the Pasadena Playhouse.
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Sixty years ago NBC Television did something that, in retrospect, seems quite radical: it telecast a one-act opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, written by Italian-American composer Gian Carlo Menotti specifically for that Christmas Eve telecast. In addition to being shown on NBC for many years (see the first Hemidemisemiquaver note below for more history), the opera has been staged by many companies, schools, churches and other entitles during the past six decades.
However, genuinely inspired productions are hard to come by. Last year, in what would turn out to be its last production before going bankrupt, Intimate Opera Pasadena staged Amahl with remarkable fidelity to Menotti’s original opera, prefaced it with actor Malcolm McDowell reading Dylan Thomas’ A Child’s Christmas in Wales, and presented it in the intimate confines of the historic Pasadena Playhouse, which is a just-right venue for this chamber opera.
Many of the people involved in last year’s production have come together in a new venture entitled Opera Posse to re-stage that production this weekend (most are donating their services in an effort to help this new company get off the ground and establish Amahl as a new Pasadens tradition). And it’s a pleasure to report that that this revival has lost none of the charm of last year’s offering.
John Iacovelli’s sets are filled with rich, imaginative details, beginning with the opening scene: a tall window with falling snow in front of which McDowell sits and reads Thomas’ tale about Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in long-ago Wales with a rich brogue and impressive shadings. Only an obnoxiously placed light in the window marred the effect.
That set morphs seamlessly into the simple, poor home of Amahl and his mother on Christmas Eve. The open roof allows for views of the Bethlehem star, which moves across the sky as the story of hope and wonder unfolds (Amahl means “hope” in Arabic). The one act is filled with “unabashed whimsicality,” as director Stephanie Vlahos notes in the program. She does an effective job of accentuating those qualities by telling the story without resorting to unnecessary gimmicks, aided by Kate Bergh’s costumes, Jared A. Sayeg’s lighting scheme, and Conny Mathot’s choreography.
Suzanna Guzmán’s portrayal of the Mother is a model of understated professionalism; she catches the mother’s frustration with the tall-tale-telling Amahl and the pathos of her struggles to provide a home, food and heat for her and her child. Caleb Glickman is appropriately impish as the lame shepherd boy.
As is often the cast, The Three Kings — Greg Fedderly as the somewhat deaf Kaspar, Hector Vásquez as Balthazar, and LeRoy Villanueva as the stately Melchior — come close to stealing the show. Benito Galindo is the Page and the exuberant dancers are Stephanie Hullar, Cása Grant and Jarrod Tyler.
Jeffrey Bernstein returns to conduct the 18-piece orchestra and he kept things moving along smartly. Members of Bernstein’s Pasadena Master Chorale, as the chorus, got off to a somewhat ragged start but rallied nicely at the end.
In an era when glitz and high-tech threaten to obliterate the purposes of Christmas, Amahl and the Night Visitors reminds us of the meaning behind the seemingly simple tale: hope and faith. Even on a VERY busy weekend filled with many concerts and other events, it’s worth revisiting those values with this production.
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Hemidemisemiquavers:
• For the inaugural telecast, Amahl was seen on 35 NBC affiliates coast to coast, the largest network hookup for an opera broadcast to that date. An estimated five million people saw the live broadcast, the largest audience ever to see a televised opera. The first two telecasts were in black and white; thereafter, it was telecast in color. Wikipedia offers more background HERE.
• Since Bernstein has a Pasadena Master Chorale concert this evening, Alan Mautner will conduct the 8 p.m. concert. Previous reports had mentioned Jorge Mester and Rachael Worby taking the helm but both were forced to drop out.
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(c) Copyright 2011, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.
