The Genesis Of 'Amahl"

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31223, 22 November 1966, Page 14

The Genesis Of 'Amahl"

(By

GIAN CARLO MENOTTI)

"Amahl and the Night Visitors” is an opera for children because it tries to recapture my own childhood. You see, when I was a child I lived in Italy, and in Italy we have no Santa Claus.

I suppose that Santa Claus is much too busy with children in other countries to be able to handle Italian children as well. Our gifts were brought to us by the Three Kings, instead. I actually never met the Three Kings—it didn’t matter how hard my little brother and I tried to keep awake at night to catch a glimpse of the Three Royal Visitors, we would always fall asleep before they arrived. But I do remember hearing them. I remember the weird cadence of their song in the dark distance: I remember the brittle sound of the camel’s hooves crushing the frozen snow; and I remember the mysterious tinkling of their silver bridles.

My favourite king was King Melchior, because he was the oldest and had a long white beard. My brother’s favourite was King Kaspar. He insisted that this king was a little crazy and quite deaf. I don’t

know why he was so positive about him being deaf. I suspect it was because dear King Kaspar never brought him all the gifts he requested. He was also rather puzzled by the fact that King Kaspar carried the myrrh, which appeared to him as a rather eccentric gift, for he never quite understood what the word meant To these Three Kings I mainly owe the happy Christ-

mas seasons of my childhood, and 1 should have remained very grateful to them. Instead, I came to the United States and soon forgot all about them. In New York at Christmas-time one sees so many Santa Clauses scattered all over town. Then there is the big Christmas tree in Rockefeller Plaza, the eleborate toy windows on Fifth avenue, the innumerable Christmas carols on radio and television—and all these things made me forget the three dear old Kings of my own childhood. In 1951, I found myself in serious difficulty. I had been commissioned by the National

Broadcasting Company to write an opera for television, with Christmas as a deadline, and 1 simply didn't have one idea in my head.

One November afternoon as I was walking rather gloomily through the rooms of the Metropolitan Museum, 1 chanced to stop in front of “The Adoration of the Kings" by Hieronymus Bosch, and as I was looking at it suddenly I heard again, coming from the distant blue hills, the weird song of the Three Kings. I then realised they had come back to me and had brought me a gift. 1 am often asked how I ’ went about writing an opera for television, and what are the specific problems that 1 had to face in planning a work for such a medium. I must confess that in writing “Amahl and the Night Visitors” 1 hardly thought of television at all. As a matter of fact, all of my operas are originally conceived for an ideal stage which has no equivalent in reality, and I believe that such is the case with most dramatic authors. For the creator the moment of nightmare in a dramatic work occurs when he finally sees his idea frozen in the realistic frame of the theatre.

Something infinitely precious to the author is altered when the original poetic impulse has been translated into literal and visual terms, no matter hdw excellent they may be. When realised in the theatre, the work becomes suddenly a disassociated and detached entity in front of which he finds himself almost a stranger. That mysterious moment of vision has been made wonderfully and fatally concrete.

I’m sure that to the very young people the stage must appear histrionically primitive compared to the cinema and television, but to me the stage still conies the closest to that “ideal theatre," perhaps because its greater use of symbolism, imposed by its own limitations, demands of the audience a wider range of imagination and a deeper poetic sense. To me, cinema, television and radio seem rather pale substitutes for the magic of the stage. This is the reason why, in writing “Amah! and the Night Visitors,” 1 intentionally disregard the mobility of the screen and limited myself to the symbolic simplicity of the stage.

Menotti wrote this article to accompany the recent R.C.A. Victor recording of his opera on mono LM.2762,

Opera