El Niño is an opera-oratorio by the contemporary American composer John Adams. It was premiered on December 15, 2000, at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris by soloists Dawn Upshaw, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and Willard White, the vocal ensemble Theatre of Voices (consisting of countertenors Daniel Bubeck, Brian Cummings and Steven Rickards), the London Voices, La Maîtrise de Paris, and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, with Kent Nagano conducting. It has been performed on a number of occasions since, and has been broadcast on BBC Television. Described as a "nativity oratorio", it retells the Christmas story, with the first half focusing on Mary's thoughts before the birth in the stable in Bethlehem, and the second half covering the aftermath of the birth, Herod's slaughter of the Holy Innocents, and the early life of Jesus. The text follows the traditional biblical story but also incorporates text from the King James Bible, the Wakefield Mystery Plays, Martin Luther's Christmas Sermon, the Gospel of Luke, and several gnostic gospels from the Apocrypha. Also included are poems by Rosario Castellanos, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Gabriela Mistral, Vicente Huidobro, Rubén Darío, librettist Peter Sellars, and Adams himself. He also quotes Gabriela Mistral's "The Christmas Star" and incorporates a choral setting of "" by Hildegard von Bingen. Performers The work is scored for soprano, mezzo-soprano and baritone soloists, a trio of countertenors, a forty-five piece orchestra (including two guitars and a sampling keyboard), SATB chorus, and a children's chorus. It can be performed either as a staged production or as a concert oratorio. The original semi-staged production by Peter Sellars includes dance and film elements. A shortened version of the work, removing two of the three countertenors and the chorus as well as much of the orchestra, was suggested by soprano Julia Bullock in 2018 for a performance at The Cloisters of the Metropolitan Museum of Art under the title El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered. Performance history The American premiere took place on January 11, 2001 at Davies Hall, San Francisco, with Kent Nagano conducting the San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Symphony Chorus, the Piedmont Children's Choir, and with the same soloists as at the Paris premiere. It received its collegiate premiere as a semi-staged oratorio on November 6, 2002, at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, conducted by Carmen Helena Téllez, with student soloists Su-Hyoun Kim, Hannah Penn and Robert Samels, but also