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Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Hindemith: The Long Christmas Dinner; DiGiacomo: A Journey to Bethlehem
Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:
Fond memories of Christmas dinner with family are part of the holiday idyll. What if it were possible to attend a Christmas feast that encompasses ninety years of a family's history? That's what the distinguished American playwright Thornton Wilder had in mind in his one act play, The Long Christmas Dinner (1931).
Composer Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) approached Wilder about rendering his play into a suitable opera libretto. Wilder took on the challenge and gave Hindemith exactly what he wanted for his last opera (1960/61). Hindemith himself translated Wilder's libretto into German (as Das lange Weihnachtsmahl) and crafted his music so that the opera could be sung in either language.
On Sunday, December 19, 2010 I broadcast the German language version in a 2005 Wergo recording with Marek Janowski conducting the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and vocal soloists. This holiday season you get Hindemith's setting of The Long Christmas Dinner in the original English-language version, as recorded live in performance at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, New York City, December 14, 2014. (This is presumably the world premiere release of the English version in 2015 on a single Bridge CD.) Leon Botstein conducts the American Symphony Orchestra with a cast of eight American vocal soloists.
Sometime during Advent I like to program lyric theater pieces in which child singers/actors take part. After all, people say Christmastime is a special time devoted to the little ones. Frank DiGiacomo (1945-2004) wrote a charming Christmas opera in one act on commission from a high school choral director in an upstate New York school district. A Journey to Bethlehem (1977) has a libretto by the composer, who based it upon medieval folk tales. DiGiacomo composed other operas for university-level productions and for professional groups like Opera Theatre of Syracuse. This one is intended specifically for amateurs,with youngsters performing all the major roles. A Journey to Bethlehem comes to us on two 20th Century Records LP's. I last presented this unique live recording on Sunday, December 23, 1990.