Gian Carlo Menotti’s much-loved Christmas opera was commissioned in America by the National Broadcasting Company and was broadcast in 1951 - the first-ever opera composed specifically for television. Menotti said that it “is an opera for children because it tries to recapture my own childhood”.
Amahl, a poor widow’s son, who can only walk with the help of a crutch, is amazed one evening to see a huge star hovering over their house. Three regally dressed strangers arrive and seek shelter for the night. For Amahl, these wondrous events lead to a miraculous healing and his own long journey to follow the star. This captivating and delightful story delivers a message of how unselfish love can work miracles.
Bampton Classical Opera, well known for their performances of rare eighteenth-century opera, bring this magical twentieth-century classic on Sunday December 16 to the annual St John’s Smith Square Christmas Festival (and also the St John’s ‘Americana’ Festival), in a new semi-staged production in costume especially aimed at families and children. This will be followed by another performance at St Mary’s Church, Bampton, Oxfordshire on 21 December, the annual St Beornwald’s Day concert in Bampton.
The Mother is played by Emma Stannard, winner of the Bampton Classical Opera Young Singers’ Competition 2017, and the role of the boy Amahl is taken by 11-year-old Felix Gillingwater, chorister at Southwark Cathedral. The conductor is Anthony Kraus, formerly with Opera North, who is also one of the pianists in Menotti’s own exciting arrangement for two pianos. The second pianist is Keval Shah, who won the Accompanists’ Prize in the Bampton Classical Opera Young Singers’ Competition 2017, when he accompanied Emma Stannard. This production is directed by Jeremy Gray.