Description
Join OperaDelaware for an immersive, site-specific production of Gian Carlo Menotti’s holiday classic Amahl and the Night Visitors at the Sunday Breakfast Mission. A mother and her disabled son offer three kings shelter in a single unforgettable night of generosity, hope and faith. OperaDelaware presents a modern re-telling of this beloved opera written by “the American Puccini” in partnership with the Sunday Breakfast Mission, a vital service organization protecting the wellbeing of Wilmington’s unhoused population.
This December, be a part of the miracle.
Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors was the first opera ever commissioned for television, premiering on Christmas Eve in 1951 at NBC’s Rockefeller Center Studios. Menotti, the Italian-American composer often called “the American Puccini,” twice won the Pulitzer Prize for Music, but it is Amahl that endures in the hearts of audiences, performed more frequently across the United States than almost any other opera in the repertoire. It is a miraculous Christmas story about generosity and dignity in the face of abject poverty.
The opera takes place near Bethlehem in the days just after the birth of Christ. Amahl is a disabled boy who walks only with a crutch and has a well-earned reputation for tall tales. His mother, facing destitution, has sold the last of their possessions. When three kings arrive at their door seeking shelter on their way to a newborn Child, the mother offers what little she has.
The night takes a darker turn when Amahl’s mother steals the kings’ gold, not out of greed, but out of love for a son she cannot feed. When she is caught, King Melchior tells her she may keep it because the Holy Child will not need earthly wealth to build his kingdom. Amahl, who has nothing to give, offers the only thing he owns: his crutch. When he does, he is healed and he stands on his own two feet for the first time.
This season, OperaDelaware is proud to present Amahl and the Night Visitors in partnership with the Sunday Breakfast Mission, our neighbors on the same Wilmington block, and tireless providers of shelter, care, and community to those who need it most.