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Amahl (Home Page)

1955 American TV production

Works of cinema & television on Amahl

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Overview

Amahl and the Night Visitors by Gian Carlo Menotti was the first opera ever commissioned for television. It was telecast in 1951 before being staged in 1952, and for many years it was a Christmas classic on television.

Performing Amahl (cinema & television)

The boy soprano who performs Amahl on the screen must also be a good actor. Menotti was not only a composer but also an experienced stage director and personally supervised the first TV productions in the 1950s. Very demandingly, he sought as protagonists only children who corresponded to his "ideal image" of Amahl. They had to have the right voice and the right look. Chet Allen (1951-52), Bill McIver (1952-55), and Kirk Jordan (1956-58) were the boy sopranos he personally selected and trained for the role. Other children have been praised for their acting skill in later productions, notably, Kurt Yaghjian, Robert Sapolsky and Pablo Strong.

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