Several years ago I was at home for Christmas break from college and witnessed quite possibly the greatest performance of a Christmas carol ever. Pavarotti and Vanessa Williams performed a duet of Adeste Fideles together with a children's choir. It instantly became my favorite! It wasn't until a few years later that I saw it again on a Saturday Night Live Christmas special and I fell in love with it all over again. Unfortunately this is where the story truly begins.
Every Christmas I was reminded of the song but was never able to find it again. I would wait and wait for Saturday Night Live to do their Christmas special wondering if this would be the year they would show it again. My hopes were consistently crushed as they failed to replay it. This led me to trying to find it online. I searched and searched and searched for literally HOURS attempting to find it online. I encountered several people like me who wondered if they would ever be able to see the performance again (1, 2, 3). The more I searched, the more discouraged I became. According to Wikipedia, the song isn't even shown in syndication and their performance was removed from the opening credits.
I began to wonder if either Pavarotti or Vanessa Williams' people didn't like the song and had SNL agree to never show it again. Maybe I had "good old day" syndrome and was remembering the song differently than it truly was. Maybe Pavarotti was ashamed and made sure the song would never be heard again. I could easily find him singing the song solo or a duet with Trisha Yearwood (yuck!). Why was this particular version so hard to find?
This brings us to this past Thursday. Saturday Night Live was again showing a Christmas special and for some reason I was optimistic. When I first heard about it several weeks ago, I put it on the calendar to remember to set the DVR. When Thursday rolled around, I made sure it was set to record and I waited in anticipation. 7:00 rolls around and it is showtime. I got busy taking care of Conor and didn't get a chance to start watching until 8:30 or so. I start at the beginning and fast forward through the whole show still keeping the dream alive until it got to 8:57, only 3 minutes left in the show. Commercials end and they start playing the closing song. The cast is bowing and thanking everyone-the show was over and they didn't play Adeste Fideles. I was crushed.
The next night it got to be 2:00 in the morning and I couldn't sleep. I decided to browse around on the internet just for kicks to see if I could find my song. I went to nbc.com and noticed that they had posted a few new "holiday" videos. It definitely piqued my interest. 5 new videos were on the first page including classics like "Schweddy Balls" and "Horatio's Christmas Treat." I clicked to go to page 2....and there it was! I had to read Pavarotti and Vanessa Williams a few times before it sunk in. Here was my song! It was just as I remembered, absolutely extradordinary and moving. Hopefully you all will enjoy it as much as I do!
Adeste Fideles
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