Atlanta Opera’s cinematic ‘Silent Night’ celebrates giving peace a chance

The tides of war are an omnipresent undercurrent in the realm of opera. Centuries of blood and thunder have erupted across the stages of the world, as empires rise and fall against the crescendos of Wagnerian imperialism, with the heroics of gods and men alike unfolding in the balance.

Such bombastic upheavals are the stuff of instant drama, but with “Silent Night,” running Saturday through Nov. 15 at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, the Atlanta Opera seeks to explore the nature of the human soul that emerges in delicate moments of peace.

With “Silent Night,” which won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in music, composer Kevin Puts explores the fleeting peace amid the outer turmoil of warring factions. Based on the 2005 film “Joyeux Noël,” the story delves into the true story of the Christmas truce of 1914, in which French, Scottish and German soldiers paused armed combat to celebrate the Yuletide season.

In 2023, the Atlanta Opera presented a production of “Rigoletto,” a piece heavily imbued with the feelings of general and artistic director Tomer Zvulun toward the then-recent Israel-Hamas war.

Does he view this production of “Silent Night” as a sort of hopeful answer to ‘Rigoletto’s’ darkness?

“I guess it depends how you look at it,” he says. “I’ve been with ‘Silent Night’ for over 15 years now. It’s not a new piece for me. I directed the European premiere of it in 2014 in Wexford, Ireland.” Zvulun brought that same production to Atlanta, New York and other U.S. cities.

The story, he explains, is an eternally relevant one but all the more appropriate given the modern state of world affairs. “I don’t know how many wars are going on in the world,” he says. “Somebody needs to count and tell us. I think there’s dozens. Telling a story that is about friendship and camaraderie and reminding everybody in the world that music and art is what unites us against all the politicians that are there to divide us — I feel like it’s an evergreen story that deserves to be told.”

“Silent Night” would be powerful enough on its own, but it runs in conjunction with a related project, “All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914.” A co-production of Theatrical Outfit and the Atlanta Opera, the show runs Dec. 2-27 at Balzer Theater at Herren’s and is meant to be seen as an informative follow-up to the Atlanta Opera’s cinematic theatricality.

Artistic director Matt Torney describes the work as “an a cappella opera for 10 voices mixed with verbatim texts from people who were actually there: excerpts from diaries, military orders, newspaper articles.”

A cast of 10 performs arrangements of period Christmas songs that are referenced in the letters, along with actual military songs.

“You get the all-the-bells-and-whistles fictional version up the road,” says Torey of “Silent Night,” “and then this intimate time with a documentary music-theater piece.”

The “all-the-bells-and-whistles” notion connects with how Zvulun perceives the “Silent Night” composer.

“When I think of Kevin Puts, I don’t think avant-garde at all. I think John Williams. (Puts’) greatest influence, based on what he’s told me and what I hear in his music, is film music.”

Though Zvulun is quick to also cite Puccini and Stravinsky as influences on the composer, he finds the soundtrack component factoring most prominently. It’s a reflection of Zvulun’s own artistic vision. “Film is my greatest influence,” he says. “Often, our style at the Atlanta Opera is called ‘cinematic.’”

To that end, he cites directors Alfred Hitchcock and Steven Spielberg as his greatest influences. He paraphrases a quote from the latter, describing films as “murals of epic action” with people asking “Who am I?” at the center.

“When I heard that, I thought, ‘He is describing every grand opera that I know,’” Zvulun says. “At the same time, he’s describing every great Steven Spielberg movie that I’ve ever seen.”

Zvulun is quick to point out that the observation is as true for Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List” as it is for Verdi’s “Aida.” “The reason we are drawn into those stories, in addition to the spectacle of it all, the way they move everything and the colorfulness, is that there are human beings you are deeply drawn into. I think with ‘Silent Night,’ Kevin Puts and (librettist) Mark Campbell created the most cinematic opera that I know.”

Zvulun’s vision for “Silent Night” and “All Is Calm” is grand, but it’s something he’s ready to pull off. As he’s proud to point out, the Atlanta Opera has been nominated for best opera company in the world by the International Opera Awards, a category it shares with the English National Opera in London and the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb, among others.

Whether Zvulun and company will win that coveted distinction remains to be seen. In the meantime, the Atlanta Opera and Theatrical Outfit stand ready to spend this year’s holiday season commemorating a rare moment in the madness of war when all was calm and all was bright.

IF YOU GO

“Silent Night”

7:30 p.m. Saturday and Nov. 10 and 13; and 3 p.m. Nov. 15. $40-$270. At Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, 2800 Cobb Galleria Parkway, Atlanta. atlantaopera.org.

“All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914”

Dec. 2-27. Tickets begin at $20. Theatrical Outfit, Balzer Theater at Herren’s, 84 Luckie St. NW, Atlanta. theatricaloutfit.org.

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Jordan Owen began writing about music professionally at age 16 in Oxford, Mississippi. A 2006 graduate of the Berklee College of Music, he is a professional guitarist, bandleader and composer. He is the lead guitarist for the jazz group Other Strangers, the power metal band Axis of Empires and the melodic death/thrash metal band Century Spawn.