NEW YORK — It seems all but unthinkable today: A major TV network hires a famous composer to write an original opera and broadcasts it live in prime time on Christmas Eve.

But it was a different world in the early days of television back in 1951 when Gian Carlo Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night Visitors” premiered on NBC to an estimated audience of 5 million children and adults.

With its tuneful score and uplifting story of a Christmas miracle, the opera — broadcast from a studio at NBC headquarters in Rockefeller Center — proved an immediate hit with viewers and critics. For many years it was repeated annually on TV, and to this day it’s a favorite holiday offering for universities, churches, community theaters and professional companies across the U.S. and internationally.

Now it’s comin

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