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Puts' "Silent Night" Finds Light in the Darkness

Mary Ellyn Hutton
Posted: Jul 11, 2014 - 3:29:40 PM in reviews_2014

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L to R: Phillip Addis as Audebert, Thomas Blondelle as Nikolaus, Erin Wall as Anna and Andrew Wilkowske as Ponchel in Kevin Puts' "Silent Night," Cincinnati Opera, July, 2014
It was serendipitous, perhaps, that Cincinnati Opera programmed Kevin Puts’ “Silent Night” for its 2014 season, coincident with the centenary of the outbreak of World War I. But it couldn’t have been more fitting. The 2011, Pulitzer Prize-winning opera, with libretto by Mark Campbell, tells the story of the true-life Christmas truce of 1914, when combatants along the Western Front laid down their arms to share a moment of peace and brotherhood.

“Silent Night” received its Cincinnati Opera premiere Thursday night at Music Hall in a performance of depth and vitality. Directed by Eric Simonson, with conductor David Charles Abell leading the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, it was moving, questioning, inspiring and dismaying, all at the same time.

Yes, the troops involved – a group of French, Scottish and German soldiers somewhere along the French border -- do declare a truce. They share gifts and play football (soccer). But they are punished for it by their superiors, who send them to the front lines, where fighting is the fiercest.

Based on the 2005 French film “Joyeux Noël,” “Silent Night” focuses on characters from both sides of the conflict. There is the German soldier/opera singer, Nikolaus Sprink (tenor Thomas Blondelle) and his lover Anna Sørenson (soprano Erin Wall), who is drawn into the conflict when she follows Nikolaus to the front after they perform a concert for the German Kaiser’s son. There is the Scottish soldier Jonathan Dale (tenor Thomas Glenn), deeply embittered when his brother William (baritone Tyler Alessi) is killed.

There is the gruff, hardened German Lt. Horstmayer (baritone Craig Irvin), who is in fact Jewish, and his counterparts, Scottish Lt. Gordon (baritone Gabriel Preisser) and French Lt. Audebert (baritone Phillip Addis). Audebert’s aide-de-camp Ponchel (baritone Andrew Wilkowske) provides some of the lighter moments in the opera -- he has an alarm clock set to go off at the exact time each morning when he used to have coffee with his mother. Father Palmer, a Scottish priest (baritone Hugh Russell) leads Mass in No Man’s Land during the truce.

The cast of 15, eight of them in their Cincinnati Opera debuts, were a formidable ensemble. The Cincinnati Opera Chorus, which comprised the troops in the opera, displayed not only fine singing but convincing acting skills as they brandished bayonets and took falls in No Man’s Land.

Puts’ music, arioso in style and somewhat reminiscent of Benjamin Britten, is lyrical and flowing, charged with emotion, but also shot through with clamor. The chorus sounds battle anthems in three languages simultaneously as the troops gather to begin act I and the opening battle with sound effects -- bomb blasts, artillery fire -- shook Music Hall. There are touching, intimate moments as well, as in act I when Audebert writes a letter to his pregnant wife, at the same time making note of the current day’s casualties.

The production, from Minnesota Opera (which premiered “Silent Night” in 2011), is eye-filling and ingenious. Center stage is a raised mound representing No Man’s Land, with the fragmentary façade of a church behind it and several leafless trees. Bunkers align both sides of the mound. All of it is moveable and adjusted by the singers themselves as the scenes change. The backdrop is a bleak gray-blue, evocative of a winter sky.

Taken as a whole, “Silent Night” has a distinctly light-dark aspect. Several of the main characters are introduced during the Prologue. Nikolaus and Anna perform an opera in Berlin. In Scotland, William Dale encourages his brother Jonathan to enlist with him, singing of the “glory” of war. Audebert takes leaves of his wife Madeleine in Paris (mezzo-soprano Adria Caffaro). After the cataclysmic battle opening act I and William Dale’s death, there is a sublimely peaceful chorus, “Sleep,” in which the troops sing of their need for rest and snow falls softly.

Spirits lighten as gifts arrive for Christmas, including Christmas trees for the Germans. The Scots sing and play bagpipes and Nikolaus sings a Christmas song. As Nikolaus and the bagpiper meet cautiously in No Man’s Land, the officers emerge with white flags and all wish each other “Merry Christmas” in their own languages. Puts’ music here is tentative, expressing the hesitancy of the moment, but turns joyous as the troops meet and begin socializing. A highlight of the opera was soprano Wall’s “Dona nobis pacem” at the conclusion of Father Palmer’s service, after which the lights dimmed and gunfire was heard in the background.

Act II turns darker. Jonathan Dale buries his brother’s body (a stirring cello solo) and the troops agree to extend the truce so they may bury their dead. As bagpipes play, they lay crosses on each body and remove their hats. It is one of the most moving scenes in the opera. When the higher command receives word of the truce, they react loudly and shrilly, however. Meanwhile, Nikolaus reminds Horstmayer that he is not fighting for the “Fatherland” but for the “idiot Kaiser” and German industrial barons.

In another touching scene, sheets of paper fall from the sky as the soldiers write letters home about their experience of the truce. (“It was the most amazing thing. I shall never forget it.”) As the German soldiers are being shipped out at the end, one plays a harmonica and the others hum along. A spotlight shone on a cross on the battlefield as the curtain fell.

“Silent Night,” sung in English, French, German and Italian with English surtitles, repeats at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Music Hall. Tickets begin at $50. Call (513) 241-2742, visit the Cincinnati Opera box office at Music Hall (9:30 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday-Friday), or order online at http://www.cincinnatiopera.org/tickets/