I listened to the recording of Amahl and the Night Visitors many, many times as a child. So many I can now sing most of the libretto by heart. It is a profound story of faith and liberation. There are quirks we can pick on, such as the cheery gypsy ragamuffin view of beggary, the middle class morals of the poor widow, and especially the emphasis on Balthazar’s blackness, but ultimately it is a story of a Messiah who will turn the world on its head, making the first last and the last first.
There are two main themes in this story: the love of mother and child, and the nature of kingship. There are more than three kings in this tale.
The first three, the Three Kings, are curious figures. They look more like British gentlemen than kings. Rich, idle, kindly, and philosophical. They don't seem to have any particular kingdoms. They act more like old friends than fellow heads of state. Melchior even denies there is any importance to royal blood. Caspar is somewhat senile.
Amahl's mother does not see them this way. Her view of kings brings about the first conflict between the themes of mother-love and kings. She sees them as awesome and fearful. Beings so powerful they are capable of destroying her and her family, without even the bother of malevolence. Consider when she first gazes on them, at the door to her hut. She has just discovered that she has unjustly called her son, whom she loves more than life, a liar, but she dares not apologize to him. The kings she sees are vain as well as powerful, and if they did not feel that they had her full attention they might be offended. To protect her son from the awesome might of these kings, she must let him continue to view her as unjust and unreasonable.
Amahl has his own view of kings, as seen in the person of the fourth king, the king of Amahl's begging fantasy. This king is exotic and strange. Unlike the kings at his doorstep, this king rules a country. But he is benevolent, his response to unrest in his streets is not soldiers but a gift of gold. Faced with kings in the flesh, Amahl is not frightened, but curious. He asks each in turn if they are real kings. Each answers “yes.” He even asks them to please bleed a little for him, so he can see regal blood. It is fortunate for him that the kings are genial gentlemen, and not the fearsome nobles his mother sees.
The shepherds see the kings as Mother does. As a child, it always bothered me that the shepherds come bringing gifts to the kings. The kings were rich! Why are the poor giving them presents, it should be the other way around! Now, of course, I know, this is the truth of kings. Where does their wealth come from? Conquest or taxes, it comes from the people. The poor have always given to the kings. In this, finally, the kings act like the kings we expect, accepting as their due the generosity of the poor.
But there is a fifth king in this story, a king stranger, more unexpected, more wonderful than all the others. This is the child the first three kings are going to worship. Who is he? One of the most beautiful passages in the libretto is the efforts of the kings and the mother to describe him. The images the kings can bring are full of majesty and mystery. He is the “color of earth, the color of thorn,” he holds the wind and the seas in his palm, at his feet rest the moon and the stars. He brings peace even to the lion and eagle.
To Amahl’s mother, however, all these images only remind her of her own son, who holds, more than the wind and seas, her very heart in his palm. Indeed, he is so dear to her, she gives up what little she has left, her honor and pride, to steal a little gold to feed him some days more. “For my child… For my child…”
Melchior is inspired after the theft, and sees clearly the image of this strange king, a king who doesn't need our gold. He holds no scepter, he wears no crown, and the most honored nobles of his realm are the poor. Talk about standing the world on its head! Why, you could almost call him an ”anti-king.”
The true selfless moment of Amahl is when his mother returns the kings’ gold. Most see the innocence of the child, giving up the very thing that lets him walk, in the ridiculous consideration that maybe the Son of God might need a crutch. This, too, is a beautiful image. Its absurdity reminds us of many of Jesus’s parables. We know the stories so well we forget how ridiculous they are. A son asks his father to give him his inheritance “in advance,” and the father agrees? This is absurd even before the father forgives the boy for wasting the money. Or the image of a camel trying to get through the eye of a needle. Usually this is told as a profound lesson. But it could as well have been a joke. As the rich young man fell behind in disappointment, Jesus shook his head and said, “I swear. Trying to get a rich man into heaven is like trying to get a camel through the eye of a needle.” And the disciples all laughed until their sides were sore.
Such a God would have loved the idea that someone was prepared to offer His son a crutch, in case he should need it.
But think a moment on the faith of Amahl's mother! Not in innocence, but in full knowledge of the privation and suffering of her future, does she give up the gold. Melchior’s aria has finally reached her. This king, coming into the world, is bigger than her fear. For her son, and for all the poor, she gives up the last hope she had meant to claim for herself.
Is this, then, the moment of the miracle? Is Amahl healed when he gives his crutch? Or, like a human magician, did God work his miracle when no one was looking? If, instead of offering his crutch to the kings, had Amahl gone to use the outhouse, would he have found that he could walk? The generosity of Amahl is the compassion he has learned from his mother.
After the miracle, Melchior remembers the fearful king he himself was mistaken for. “We must praise Him,” the kings sing, knowing that all attention must be turned to the jealous God. But Amahl and his mother give God what he truly wants: to see the joy His gift has brought. Amahl's running and fighting and play are more thanks and praise than the kings’ devotionals. The Fifth King finally brings together the themes of Amahl. For he appears like nothing so much as the love of a mother for her child.
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