| For immediate release – New York, NY – On Site Opera (OSO) will present Gian Carlo Menotti’s holiday opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, at the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen December 6-8, 2018. In partnership with Breaking Ground, New York City’s largest provider of permanent supportive housing for the homeless, performances will feature a chorus made up of community members who have experienced homelessness.
Tickets will be free, part of OSO’s “Opera Free For All” initiative, though the company asks that all attendees bring a small donation of non-perishable food items, to be given to the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen.
Directed by OSO General and Artistic Director, Eric Einhorn, the production will feature Aundi Marie Moore as The Mother, Joseph Gaines as King Caspar, Daniel Belcher as King Melchior, Musa Ngqungwana as King Balthazar, Jonathan R. Green as the Page, and Devin Zamir Coleman and Luciano Pantano as Amahl.
Said Einhorn of the production: “In this collaboration with our amazing partners at Breaking Ground and the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen, we hope to show how the arts and social services can work hand in hand, and help to shine a light on the issue of homeless in New York City, particularly during the holiday season.”
“We are so proud of our tenants who have joined the chorus for Amahl and the Night Visitors, and we are so grateful to On Site Opera for helping to lift their voices in unison,” said Brenda Rosen, President and CEO of Breaking Ground. “Hunger and homelessness often go hand-in-hand, and the unique setting at Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen is sure to bring a whole new level of meaning.”
Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors is a retelling of the Nativity story and the journey of the Magi from the point of view of Amahl and his mother who are on the brink of poverty. Performed in English in one 45-minute act, the opera was originally written for television and premiered on Christmas Eve 1951.
This production follows OSO’s acclaimed recent performances of Ricky Ian Gordon’s and William Hoffman’s Morning Star at the Eldridge Street Synagogue, Mozart’s Secret Gardener in an NYC community garden, Milhaud’s Guilty Mother in a Hell’s Kitchen garage, and the world premiere of Musto’s Rhoda and the Fossil Hunt at the American Museum of Natural History’s Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs.
This production is made possible by an OPERA America Innovation Grant, supported by the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. Supported by funding from the New York State Council on the Arts. |
