“AMAHL” PRODUCTION: Drawing on talent from the...

“AMAHL” PRODUCTION: Drawing on talent from the nearby state university campus, the Northridge United Methodist Church will present a fully staged and costumed production of “Amahl and the Night Visitors” with orchestra on two nights next weekend.

The popular Christmas opera, composed in 1951 for NBC by Gian Carlo Menotti, will be performed at 8 p.m. Friday and 7 p.m. Dec. 5 in the church at 9650 Reseda Blvd.

The story is about a disabled boy who encounters the three Magi described in the story of Jesus’ birth as told in the Gospel of Matthew. Thirteen-year-old Colin Nelson of San Juan Capistrano plays Amahl.

Larry Jarvis, a voice professor at Cal State Northridge and musical director of the church, will lead the orchestra and the church’s 40-voice choir. Judith Scott, also on the university’s voice faculty, is the stage director. Many singers and musicians are alumni of the university and pursuing professional careers in music, Jarvis said.

Tickets for adults are $12, students $8 and children $6. For information, call the church at (818) 886-1555.

PUPPET SHOWS: The Marionette Theatre of the Word performance schedule of Roland and Verna Sylwester (see above story) includes these upcoming dates:

Wednesday--Granada Hills, 7 p.m., Our Savior’s First Lutheran Church, “I Would Take You to the Christ Child.”

Dec. 5--Bakersfield, three morning performances at Community Church of Life, “Fruit of the Spirit.”

The following are performances of “The Puppet and the Word”:

Dec. 8--Corona, 8:40 a.m., Grace Lutheran School.

Dec. 8--Culver City, 7:30 p.m., Grace Lutheran Church.

Dec. 14--North Hills, 1 p.m., Valley Presbyterian School.

Dec. 15--Canoga Park, 8:30 a.m., Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran School.

Dec. 17--Anaheim, 12:30 p.m., Zion Lutheran School.

DUNCAN APPEARANCE: Singer-actress Sandy Duncan will appear Dec. 4 in two performances of the annual Christmas concert produced by the Metropolitan Community Church in the Valley.

The holiday concert, featuring about 40 voices and 20 musicians, will be presented at 5 and 8 p.m. in the sanctuary of First Christian Church of North Hollywood at Colfax Avenue and Moorpark Street.

Steven Applegate, director of music at Metropolitan Community Church, said the concert will include an array of music from contemporary pieces to traditional Christmas songs.

A donation of $10 is requested for each non-reserved seat, which may be made at the door. For advance tickets, call the Metropolitan Community Church at (818) 762-1133.

LUTHERAN PULPIT CHANGES: Two San Fernando Valley congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America are getting new pastors even as two other churches in the region announced the year-end retirement of their pastors.

The Rev. Anne Tiemeyer, who holds a master of divinity degree from Yale Divinity School and recently served a church in New Jersey, will begin her ministry at Christ the King Lutheran Church in Van Nuys on Sunday. The church, which has about 160 members, has gone without a permanent pastor since March of last year. Tiemeyer served as an intern in 1988 at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church near the USC campus.

The Rev. Donald Dallmann, previously a pastor in Oklahoma, will take the pulpit at 500-member Bethel Lutheran Church in Encino on Dec. 5, succeeding the Rev. John Steward.

Meanwhile, the Rev. Jack Lundeen of St. Luke’s Lutheran Church in Woodland Hills and the Rev. Bob Varblow of Lancaster’s Church of the Master have announced their retirements, effective Dec. 31, according to the newsletter of the Southern California West Synod of the denomination.

EX-BAKKER AIDE: The Rev. Richard Dortch, who was president of the PTL television theme park during Jim Bakker’s 1987 sex-and-money scandal, will speak at 6 p.m. Sunday at North Hollywood’s First Assembly of God, 11455 Burbank Blvd.

Dortch, restored as a minister by the Assemblies of God, described his own downfall in a recent book, “Integrity, How I Lost It and My Journey Back.” He now heads Life Challenge Inc., a ministry through which he speaks on college campuses, syndicated TV talk shows and before religious groups.

For information, call (818) 766-4341.

CHRISTMAS CONCERT: Charles Saint-Saens’ “Christmas Oratorio” will be included in the annual Christmas concert at the Glendale City Seventh-day Adventist Church at 7:30 p.m. Friday.

The church festival chorus and concert orchestra, under the direction of John T. Dennison, will also perform a suite of Christmas spirituals and other numbers. Concert-goers are invited to join carol-singing afterward in the fellowship hall of the church at 610 E. California Ave.

Admission is free, but parking is limited. For information, call the church at (818) 244-7241.

NEW VICAR: Sister Mary Faith Clark, a native of San Fernando, has been appointed vicar of women religious in the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, succeeding Sister Mary Glennon in the administrative post.

Clark, a member of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary since 1950, is a former teacher and provincial superior of her order’s California province.

TEMPLE TUNES: Cantor Fran Lawson of Temple Judea and Alan Karpel, the Reform congregation’s executive director who was once a concert pianist, will be featured in a concert titled “Their Favorite Things” at 8 p.m. Dec. 4 in the temple, 5429 Lindley Ave., Tarzana.

A dessert buffet will follow the concert for which the general admission charge is $15. For information, call (818) 987-2616.