Word: amahl
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Still smarting from the critical response of his native Italy to his Medium and Consul in the past three seasons, Composer Gian-Carlo Menotti tried again last week; he staged his little Christmas TV opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, in Florence's Pergola Theater. Standing in the wings, Menotti felt reasonably confident this time: Leopold Stokowski conducted with a sure hand, a dressy international audience admired the handsome settings, stopped the show after a flashing dance sequence, and cheered up ten curtain calls for the cast at the end. Even the stage electrician admitted he liked...
...were given to Horatio), rather than make internal cuts in the speeches. Only one of Hamlet's soliloquies ("How all occasions do inform against me . . .") landed in the wastebasket. Twelve minutes were devoted to commercials for Sponsor Hallmark Cards, which has twice sponsored Menotti's Christmas opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors...
...turned 20. Up to now, however, he has been known almost exclusively as a conductor of operas by Gian-Carlo Menotti. He led The Consul on Broadway for three months (in 1950) conducted The Medium when it was filmed in Italy, and led NBC's television performances of Amahl and the Night Visitors for the past two Christmases...
...good music. Television may be doing the same thing for opera. The tried & true arias have long been popular favorites on such TV variety programs as Your Show of Shows and Toast of the Town. The NBC network pioneered in producing such TV-sized operas as Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors and Martinu's The Marriage. In Manhattan, independent station WPIX has been telecasting Opera Cameos for the past three years, complete with a sponsor (Progresso Brand Quality Foods) and a ready-made audience of opera lovers...
...thing to profits is prestige. Since 1949, NBC-TV has boosted its prestige with more than a dozen operas, mostly without benefit of sponsors. Last week No. 16 on the list went before the cameras: Czech Composer Bohuslav Martinu's The Marriage. Like Gian-Carlo Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors (TIME, Dec. 31, 1951), martinu's opera is short (55 minutes), written to be sung in English, and constructed with TV in mind every minute...