BARRY COURTER: Lisa, how do you feel about opera?
LISA DENTON: Well, I know how to tell when one's over. And I love the commercials for that financial services company: "Call J.G. Wentworth, 877-CASH-NOW" (me singing as if wearing a breastplate and Viking helmet). But I don't think my dramatic jingle singing is what you have in mind.
BARRY: I have seen several shows presented by the Chattanooga Symphony & Opera, and they do an amazing job. I have to confess, however, that I am always taken aback when the singer takes two minutes and 32 seconds to sing in Italian or German what takes three words to translate into English in the supertitles.
LISA: It's like watching "Whose Line Is It Anyway," but they were doing it for comic effect. With opera, the foreign languages can be off-putting, but the stories are usually easy to follow and the production values are tremendous.
BARRY: The stories are easy for sure. Usually, someone falls in love, and someone dies because of it. The drama is figuring out who and how. I brought all this up because the CSO is staging "Amahl and the Night Visitors" Friday night, and they are doing so with a pretty cool twist. George Quick at the Chattanooga Theatre Centre is directing, and Bob Willie and Frank Hay at Chattanooga Ballet are choreographing and providing the dancers. Local muralist Shaun LaRose is designing the set.
LISA: Collaboration makes sense for this production. Presented in English, it tells the story of a disabled boy, Amahl, and his life-changing encounter with the Magi as they travel to see the Christ Child.
And to prove just how accessible the story is, "Amahl" was the first opera written for television. According to the CSO, it was broadcast live over 35 NBC affiliates on Dec. 24, 1951, and watched by an estimated 5 million viewers. Surely Chattanooga can fill the Tivoli for this show (8 p.m., tickets starting at $12).
BARRY: And it lasts about an hour.