Collier’s Opera casting is delightfully inclusive
https://www.addisonindependent.com/2021/12/16/letter-to-the-editor-colliers-opera-casting-is-delightfully-inclusive/
Letter to the editor: Collier’s opera casting is delightfully inclusive
December 16, 2021
By Sasha Olinick
I was delighted to read in Elsie Lynn Parini’s Dec. 9 article “‘Amahl and the Night Visitors’ Resumes in Salisbury” that area residents will have an annual opportunity to attend a live performance of Gian Carlo Menotti’s opera at the Salisbury Congregational Church. Heartened as I was to hear that the production is happening, I was even more pleased to learn about the sensitivity to race and gender demonstrated by director Josh Collier’s casting decisions.
Collier mentions in the article the problematic section of the opera when Amahl, in surprise, describes the strangers at the door announcing, “The kings are three, and one of them is black!” This astonished reference to the dark skin of the character King Balthazar, is one I remember well. I am a white actor/singer who must sheepishly confess that nearly three decades ago, I performed the role of the African monarch. In our production we considered working around the uncomfortable lyric (and my obvious lack of blackness) by altering it from “one of them is black” to “one of them’s in black”, making it a reference to my costume, not my complexion. Collier’s solution, to find BIPOC performers for both the roles of Balthazar and Amahl, and to transform the moment of shock into a moment of empowerment is a far more progressive and exciting choice. I’m equally impressed that this year the director has cast a transgendered actor as Amahl; in our version the teenage performer had to don a wig to hide her gender, in this production, the young singer with the requisite soprano range will proudly reveal himself on stage as he sees himself in life. This feels to me like progress.
There are other aspects of Amahl that could stand some scrutiny; as much as I love the opera, I think it’s worth examining it as an example of how racist imagery can be perpetuated, sometimes in seemingly innocent ways, across generations. In 1951, Menotti came up with the idea for Amahl when he stumbled across a painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A quick examination of the 15th century work that inspired him, Adoration of the Kings by the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch, reveals that it is firmly rooted in an ethnocentric mythology that Jesus and Mary were light skinned, blue eyed and blonde haired; the shepherds in the painting are depicted similarly, and the African king stands out as looking very different from everyone else. So Menotti, with Bosch’s 475-year-old vision firmly in mind, refueled the notion that Bethlehem and its surroundings were homogeneously white; this choice ignored the reality that 2,000 years ago, very few people living in the Middle East would have looked at all Aryan, and reinforced a centuries-old prejudicial trope by replicating it in a different artistic medium.
Fortunately, artists as thoughtful as Collier have the courage and vision to reexamine these tired assumptions. I’m disappointed I won’t be able to see “Amahl and the Night Visitors” in Salisbury this year as I’m currently performing in “Beauty and the Beast” here in the Washington, D.C., area. In our production, the heroine Belle is played by a phenomenal performer who is African American and self describes as “plus-sized and Queer” and the Beast is portrayed by a terrific musical theater actor who lost the lower part of his right leg to cancer several years ago. In the past month of performances it’s been exciting to feel how warmly audiences have embraced the show’s conscious attempt to challenge conventional concepts of beauty. I have little doubt that those who attend Collier’s production of “Amahl and the Night Visitors” will be equally moved by his efforts to make the storytelling more inclusive. I wish him and the cast many broken legs!
Sasha Olinick, MUHS 1990
Takoma Park, Md.