BARN OPERA Creates a heartfelt Amahl for today

https://www.rutlandherald.com/features/vermont_arts/barn-opera-creates-a-heartfelt-amahl-for-today/article_8b0f21e2-fa34-5dc0-ac00-8fed06ecc81c.html

Joshua Collier has very specific ideas of what he wants for each production he creates. For each role, each voice type, personality type, acting ability, and the chemistry between performers, it’s all dissected before he begins.

That holds true for his latest show as well, Barn Opera’s upcoming presentation of Giancarlo Menotti’s holiday opera, “Amahl and the Night Visitors,” at 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Dec. 13 and 14, at Salisbury Congregational Church.

“Ultimately, I decided that this production would be an all-Vermont production like our first one was,” he said by phone recently.

“Amahl and the Night Visitors” features a principal cast of professional artists that all currently reside in Vermont, as well as a local amateur chorus. The opera tells of a poor mother and her crippled son who exhibit extraordinary generosity by giving everything that they own to provide comfort for three kings.

“I see it as a Christmas fable that emphasizes the real meaning of what the holiday and the season is all about,” said soprano Helen Lyons, of Ferrisburgh, who plays the mother.

Middlebury brothers Joshua and Jonathan Kafumbe will make their operatic debuts as the title character Amahl on alternating nights. Jonathan, a local elementary school student, and Joshua, in middle school, were cast during an audition call that spread from Boston to New York.

“In the story, the kings come to Amahl’s house,” explained Collier, who is directing. “Amahl says one of them is black, and opera is typically pretty Anglo, and it’s always rang a little flippant to me. I don’t believe the writer was intending on articulating a racist novelty but that’s the way it sounds. So I said if I can’t change a word, I can change the meaning, and if I have a black Amahl, it means one of the kings is like me. So to be able to adjust that is interesting to me, and I said I won’t do this unless I can find an Amahl of color.”

Collier had already scheduled auditions in nearby large cities, only to find the Kafumbe brothers in East Middlebury.

“My original concept was that Amahl and his mother would be migrants,” Collier said. “And they were in a holding facility, and the chorus would be on the other side of a chain link fence.”

But after some consideration Collier chose a different tack.

“There are lots of references to the idea of Amahl and his mother being somewhat ‘Jesus and the Virgin Mary,’” Collier said. “Everyone in the story is both human and divinely inspired and that’s where I ended up after my initial, liberal, angry at everything concept. By adjusting to articulate the generosity of the human spirit in these characters, I think it will resonate more.”

With casting and the concept in place, rehearsals will take place during the week of the show.

“It’s a very quick process,” Collier said. “When you do it this way, you’ve got to show up with everything learned. It also means that we start immediately with music making as opposed to note learning, which is different.”

“You jump right in and hit the ground running,” Lyons said. “I find it’s really energizing. A lot of times things are over-rehearsed and (it loses) the spontaneity.”

“It’s a beautiful story of humanity and generosity and inclusion,” Colliler said. “That’s my story of Amahl.”