A List
8/27/07

SLU TO STAGE 'AMAHL'; AUDITIONING FOR TITLE ROLE

CANTON - St. Lawrence University will present a production of Gian Carlo Menotti's beloved one-act Christmas opera Amahl and the Night Visitors this holiday season, and is looking for a local child to play the title character.

Performances will be Friday, November 30, and Saturday, December 1, at 8 p.m. at the Russell Opera House, and on Sunday, December 16, at 2 p.m. in Gulick Theatre on campus. The director is Gerard Moses, emeritus professor of drama at Syracuse University; music director is Barry Torres, director of music ensembles at St. Lawrence.

The role of Amahl, a boy soprano 10 to 12 years old, is open and auditions will be held, by appointment. All interested boys and their parents may contact Torres, at 315-229-5171 or btorres@stlawu.edu.

The remainder of the roles, already cast, will be played by St. Lawrence students and an alumnus.

Amahl and the Night Visitors is about a poor, crippled shepherd boy and his mother, who are visited by the Three Kings while on their journey to visit the Christ child. Having no food in the house, they invite their neighbor shepherds to visit and offer their humble, but much appreciated hospitality and entertainment. Later, as all are asleep, the mother, desperate in her poverty, attempts to steal some of the gold and is caught. The benevolent Kings understandingly forgive her actions, noting that the future King of Love will not need the gold. The mother gives back the gold and wishes she could offer a gift to the child. Amahl offers his crutch and at the climax of the opera, experiences a miraculous healing. Acknowledging the healing as a sign of the Christ, all rejoice, and Amahl leaves with the Kings to pay homage himself. It is the first opera written expressly for television; the piece premiered on NBC on Christmas Eve in 1951.

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More information: Arts at St. Lawrence