“Amahl and the Night Visitors” has always been a story about grace amid misery
is not a professional singer. Nonetheless, last year she auditioned for On Site Opera’s seasonal production of “Amahl and the Night Visitors”, a Christmas staple by Gian Carlo Menotti, because she heard that chorus members would be paid and she needed the money.
She heard about the auditions because she lives in The Times Square, a Manhattan building run by Breaking Ground, the city’s largest provider of permanent supportive housing for the homeless—and a collaborator on the production. Ms O’Day thought she would quit after a rehearsal or two, but found the experience so rewarding that she decided to join the acclaimed troupe for a second year, performing in a sold-out revival at the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen that ended on December 8th.
The title character of Menotti’s opera, which had its premiere in a television broadcast on Christmas Eve 1951, is a poor, crippled shepherd boy who, with his widowed mother, unexpectedly hosts the three kings on their way to visit the Christ Child. In this modern staging, performed in the round in a vaulted Chelsea church that serves hot lunches to the hard-up, Amahl and his mother live in a homeless shelter.
“Amahl” has always been a story about grace amid misery: the mother steals the kings’ gold to feed her boy, but then gives away everything to honour a divine child who will one day build a kingdom “on love alone”. This version reminds viewers that such desperation remains shockingly common in one of the richest cities in the world. After it opened last year, many audience members were so moved by this “Amahl” that they asked for it to be an annual holiday event.
Ms O’Day hopes audiences come away with a better sense of what it is like to be homeless. She notes that Amahl’s mother steals because she worries about her child going hungry. “That’s what homeless people think about,” she says. “Most people don’t know how hard it is not to have.”"No crib for a bed"
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