If you want to acquaint youngsters with opera, you don't start with "Carmen" or "Aida." Too long, too heavy, too complicated.
But "Amahl and the Night Visitors" is another matter. It lasts barely 50 minutes and its setting is a story with which most children are familiar.I attended the Wednesday morning matinee, along with some 2,000 elementary school children from throughout the valley. While they were in the process of piling off the buses and into Kingsbury Hall, I was reminded of the noisy Saturday matinees I went to as a kid at the Orpheum and Roxy theaters in Twin Falls, Idaho.
Then the lights dimmed, a collective cheer went up - and orchestra conductor Robert Debbaut reminded the pupils that the performance would not begin until they quieted down.
Handicapped shepherd boy Amahl and his impoverished mother live in a small home not far from Bethlehem. As night falls, Amahl is playing his horn in the garden and admiring a large, luminous star hovering in the distance over the hillside.
A lad given to tall tales, when he explains to Mom about what he's seen in the sky, she rebukes him. Later, when three regally robed kings and their page stop to rest, she does not believe him when he tries to explain who is at the door.
But, after all, this is a night of miracles - even such miraculous things as Amahl telling the truth, his mother believing him, and a crutch being changed into a simple gift for a Newborn Child.
While this "Amahl" is a student production, there was no stinting on quality or talent. It's all first-rate. The cast I saw included Joan Mabe as Amahl's mother, Kristin Croyle as Amahl, and Hugo Vera, Karl Elbel and Michael Vielstich as the Three Kings, and Andrew Nielson as the Page, along with a sizable chorus and Debbaut's 20-musician orchestra.
Vera, as the hard-of-hearing Kaspar, especially pleased the young audience with his joyful humor.
The opera is a nice blend of both serious and light-hearted moments (most youngsters probably identified readily with Amahl being summoned - again and again - to come into the house and go to bed).
Well, guess what? You can see this and still get home in time for bed.