Menotti: Amahl and the Night Visitors / Sebastian: Ballet Suite

"Best of all here is the wonderful conducting of Thomas Schippers, who finds more energy, more poetry and more pathos in Amahl than any other conductor I've heard: in Schippers's hands it is both moving and adorable, and this Naxos transfer by Mark Obert-Thorn has come up sounding splendid."
(International Record Review)

Reissue Producer and Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn.

The reception for the first television broadcast of Menotti's opera Amahl and the Night Visitors (also available in an acclaimed modern recording on Naxos 8669019) was overwhelming: an estimated five million viewers, the NBC switchboard jammed with congratulatory calls and an unprecedented front-page review in The New York Times. Quickly recorded for RCA Victor, the album became a best-seller and the opera remains a Christmas evergreen, brimming with memorable tunes for both soloists and chorus. Set in 17th-century Venice, Menotti's ballet Sebastian, the concert suite from which is heard here, was applauded by The New York Times as an 'unblushing melodrama... brilliantly effective'.