A very happy Epiphany to y’all. I’ll refer you to many other sources online which will explain all the nuances of the day–suffice to say it generally is associated with the Three Wise Men/Three Kings who visited the Christ Child a bit after his birth. Think gold, frankincense, and myrrh. For me it means I listen to Amahl and the Night Visitors, a one-act opera by Gian Carlo Menotti. In it, Amahl is a young boy, lame, who no longer watches sheep because his mother and he are so poor that she has sold the sheep to buy food. There is no father. They are visited by the three wise men who are on their way to Bethlehem. Amahl’s mother is unable to withstand temptation with all that gold, and she takes a piece whereupon she is caught. All is quickly forgiven, Amahl experiences a miracle healing, and he receives his mother’s permission to accompany the three kings on the rest of their journey so that he can pay homage to Jesus (and presumably give thanks for being healed).

This opera amazes me, not because of its performance (which I love) but because in 1951 NBC commissioned it, by the “director of NBC’s new opera programming” no less! Imagine that. Today reality TV masquerades as intentional, thoughtful programming; 70 years ago, NBC not only telecast an opera but commissioned it. I have listened to this on or around Epiphany every year for more than 30 years after I purchased it from the Musical Heritage Society in the late 80’s. My version is the 1986 London production which occurred under Menotti’s supervision, and which I digitized during the Great Musical Digitization Project I performed on my music from 2006-2014. (Eight years? In my defense there was a lot of music, and I kept buying more. In fact, I have a few hundred recordings which never made it, mostly jazz and classical.) Imagine my distress when I couldn’t locate this file on my computer today. Something must have happened–files do corrupt for various reasons–and I deleted it? I had to ‘make do’ with the version I found on Tidal which featured the original cast of the NBC telecast shown on Christmas Eve in 1951. I couldn’t determine if it was the actual broadcast or just “featured” those performers. If you go looking for it, the director of this recording was Thomas Schippers. It was very good, but not as good as the one I purchased in 1987 or 1988 from MHS. The latter has clearer vocals which make the words easier to understand. In my opinion, it also features a bit more drama in the performances.

This 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 American children 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 just 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.

Gian-Carlo Menotti, from the liner notes to the original cast recording (Wikipedia)

I miss MHS. It would usually take obscure or under-appreciated (but very decent) recordings, add its own liner notes, and press them. In addition to Amahl and the Night Visitors I purchased many wonderful albums of Christmas music alone: A Tapestry of Carols by Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band, listed first because it is my absolute favorite Christmas album; Christmas Carols by the Scottish National Orchestra, rated by several critics as one of the best Christmas albums ever; Christmas Now Is Drawing Nigh by Sneaks Noyse, an attempt to recreate what the carols sounded like centuries ago; Carols from New College by the Choir of New College, Oxford; Merry Christmas by the Vienna Boys Choir; and A Festival of Christmas which appears to be a combination of two commercial albums, one by the Huddersfield Choral Society and one by The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir.

And so we bid goodbye to Christmastide and Epiphany. In a moment, I shall pray for all those who enter our house and chalk that blessing on the lintel of our front door. I’m not worried about getting the decorations down before sundown: they will start to come down tomorrow. And we will segue into Ordinary Time, an odd naming for the time which is neither Lent/Easter- or Advent/Christmas-oriented. Bless you all who come through the virtual doorway to this blog.