NBC - MENOTTI, COMPOSER OF FIRST OPERA FOR TV, DEAD AT 95

Gian Carlo Menotti, the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer who was commissioned by NBC in 1951 to write the first opera for television, died Thursday in Monaco at the age of 95. The opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, became a Christmas classic that aired on the network annually until 1966. A new production, which aired in 1978, was later released on home video. (An even more recent production, broadcast in the U.K. in 2002, has never been seen in the U.S.) Menotti won Pulitzers for The Consul (1950) and The Saint of Bleecker Street (1954). He was also the founder of the Spoleto Arts Festival.

02/02/2007