Alexander Schneider

The Kennedy Center Honors is an annual honor given to those in the performing arts for their lifetime of contributions to American culture.

This short documentary features Canadian contralto Maureen Forrester as she sings at the Festival Casals, a musical event founded by the great Spanish cellist and conductor Pablo Casals and sponsored annually by the Puerto Rican government. Part concert film, part tourism film, Festival in Puerto Rico offers viewers candid glimpses of mid-20th century Puerto Rico intercut with performance footage of Forrester and her husband, violinist-conductor Eugene Kash.

Mary and Joseph with the baby Jesus in the stable in Bethlehem, the adoration of the shepherds and then the Magi, the massacre of the innocents ordered by Herod, the flight to Egypt: these are the well-known episodes of the Christmas story recounted in the Gospels. Regularly performed at the court of Dresden during the Christmas holidays, this is a pioneering work of 17th-century German music.