NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
STERLING, Kan. — Sterling College music professor Larry Brownlee is getting on the stage to sing as part of the Wichita Grand Opera's performance of All is Calm this holiday season.
"It's a 13 cast, all male, a cappella musical, which uses Christmas carols, folk songs from Germany, from England, from Scotland, from Wales," Brownlee said. "It's just a great piece that takes a historical event, sets it in music and it's just, it's very, very powerful. I've been excited to be a part of that."
Writer Peter Rothstein said in supporting materials for the performance obtained by Hutch Post, "The Christmas Truce took place in 1914, the first year of World War I, and was never repeated. Thousands of men put down their guns and left their trenches to meet their enemies in No Man’s Land. They exchanged gifts of tobacco, rum and chocolates; even photographs of loved ones. They sang songs, played a game of soccer, and buried each other’s dead."
Sterling did the production last year.
"The Wichita Grand Opera did it in, I think, 2019 and they are producing it again," Brownlee said. "Not all of their original cast was able to come back and do it again, so they contacted us and asked for a few more cast members, so I'm one from our cast that is participating and there are four other students from Sterling College. Two of them have been in it before and two of them are new to the cast."
Just how widespread the truce was is hard to say. It was not general, as there are plenty of accounts of fighting continuing through the Christmas season in some sectors, and others of men fraternizing to the sound of guns firing nearby. However, the performance is meant to bring hope that the message of Christmas is one that can transcend and bring peace on earth and goodwill toward men.
"A German soldier just starts singing Silent Night in German and steps out of the trenches," Brownlee said. "Then, a British soldier goes and joins them and pretty soon they are all out there together. The show ends when the truce is over and they each go back into their trenches and the war starts again."
You can catch the performance at Crown Uptown in Wichita on December 15 or at the McPherson Opera House on December 18. Tickets can be obtained through the performance venues.