Night Visitors was the first network television Christmas special to become an annual tradition. There had already been several television productions of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol since about 1947, but they had not been shown annually or presented by the same television network, with the same general technical staff, as Amahl was. Until 1963, Amahl was nearly always presented with many of the same singers and production staff. From 1951 until 1966 it was presented every year on NBC (which commissioned Menotti to write it) on or around Christmas Eve, as an episode of an existing anthology series, such as The Alcoa Hour, NBC Television Opera, or the Hallmark Hall of Fame. The 1978 production of Amahl also premiered on NBC, before it went to cable television in the early 1980s. See also List of Christmas operas References Notes Sources Barnes, Jennifer (2003), Television Opera: The Fall of Opera Commissioned for Television, Boydell Press, External links Amahl and the Night Visitors - Premier Broadcast on NBC (1951) on archive.org Video: Performed by Milwaukee Opera Theatre 1951 operas Children's operas English-language operas Christmas operas One-act operas Operas Operas by Gian Carlo Menotti Operas for television Peabody Award-winning broadcasts Musical television specials 1950s American television specials 1960s American television specials 1970s American television specials 1951 television specials Hallmark Hall of Fame episodes American Christmas television specials