The only bad thing about Lyric Opera San Diego's production of Gian Carlo Menotti's one-act opera "Amahl and the Night Visitors" is its brevity. With voices of this caliber in the show, you wish the music would go on and on.
Del Mar soprano Priti Gandhi and 11-year-old San Diego boy soprano Spike Sommers lead a stellar vocal cast in the hourlong opera, which is supplemented with 20 minutes of Christmas carols well-performed by San Diego's Full Measure Carolers. The 90-minute, intermissionless production is well-sung, conducted and staged and is a festive holiday outing for operagoers of all ages.
"Amahl and the Night Visitors" is a contemporary, made-for-TV American opera. In 1950, Menotti was commissioned by NBC studios to write a 55-minute holiday opera for television. After many failed ideas, Menotti came up with the idea for the opera after viewing Hieronymus Bosch's painting "The Adoration of the Magi." From 1951 to 1966, NBC broadcast "Amahl and the Night Visitors" every Christmas season, and since then it has been produced all over the world on stage, television and CD.
The opera tells the story of a crippled shepherd boy and his poor mother who provide shelter one night for the three kings on their way to Bethlehem for the Christ child's birth. Seeing the treasure the Magi are carrying, the mother attempts to steal some gold coins and is caught. But the kings forgive her crime and she is so amazed at their graciousness that she wishes she, too, could give a gift to the Christ child. Amahl also wishes to honor the Christ child, so he gives the kings his only possession -- his crutch -- and a Christmas miracle occurs.
Because the opera was written for mass audiences (7 million people watched its original broadcast), Menotti wrote a piece with simple musical themes, recognizable melodies and a libretto chock-full of humor. Even young children will get some laughs out of the story (Amahl is prone to telling whoppers, and one of the three kings is deaf as a post), and stage director J. Sherwood Montgomery directs with a dash of humor.
The opera's vocal cast is superb.
Sommers, who alternates performances with Daniel Louis Meyers, has the voice of an angel in the role of Amahl, a tricky, high-note-filled part that's all over the scales musically. And his voice blends beautifully with Gandhi's, who arrives at Lyric Opera to play the role of Amahl's Mother fresh from her Lincoln Center debut.
Local operagoers have watched Gandhi grow up over the past dozen years as a young trainee in the San Diego Opera Ensemble to a professional singer booked year-round nationally. Over the years, her voice has grown in power and flexibility and has risen from the mezzo-soprano into the soprano territory. Although the "Amahl" role doesn't allow Gandhi to show off her coloratura skills, it does show how large her voice has grown and how well she can control it. Big voices sometimes mean a harsh or shrill sound, but Gandhi's sound is silky and feminine. She's haunting in the solo "All That Gold!" and harmonizes beautifully with Sommers in their duets.
Also excellent are the three kings, who each have large, rich voices, particularly Michael L. Morgan as King Balthazar and Robert Aaron Taylor as King Melchoir. Daniel Hall plays the comic card as the hard-of-hearing King Kaspar. And Leviticus Richardson rounds out the lead cast as the kings' Page. The kings are heard best in the quartet with Gandhi "Have You Seen a Child."
Company general director Leon Natker offers restrained conducting from the pit, and the 20-voice chorus is well coached in their number "Olives and Quinces." Shirley Johnston choreographed the shepherds' dance.
Director Montgomery also designed the set, a quaint cottage set under a curtain of glowing stars. Pam Stompoly Ericson's costumes and makeup are good, though the Bombay-born Gandhi and blond-haired, blue-eyed Sommers bear little physical resemblance (get this boy a brown wig!).
"Amahl and the Night Visitors" is both aurally and visually pleasing. It's just too bad that such a terrific cast of singers had to stop singing so soon.
"Amahl and the Night Visitors"
When: 7:30 p.m. Dec. 20; 2:30 p.m. Dec. 22-23
Where: Birch North Park Theatre, 2891 University Ave., San Diego
Tickets: $30-$50, general; children ages 5 to 17 are half-price
Info: (619) 239-8836
