Name: All Is Calm
Start: 2022-12-02T00:00:00.000Z
End: 2022-12-24T00:00:00.000Z
Location: Dr Phillips Center for the Performing Arts

Organization

Assistant Stage Director

Zane Alcorn

Stage Manager

Tiffany Lyn Meadows

Stage director

Grant Preisser

Costume designer

Kim Welborn

Lighting designer

Nate Wheatley

Conductor

Andrew Minear

Singer

Dashiell Waterbury

Tenor

John Teixeira

Gavin Waid

Baritone

Geoffrey Peterson

Stephen Mumbert

Torlef Borsting

Chadley Ballantyne

Ardean Landhuis

bass

Chris Teixeira

Opera Orlando

enska

All Is Calm

Orlando

United States

Dr Phillips Center for the Performing Arts

Steinmetz Hall

Sanford

Ritz Theater

Lakeland

Polk Theatre

Public

Approved

The Christmas truce of World War I represents a truly unique and powerful moment in history. It was, in fact, not an isolated event in Christmas 1914 but rather one of a series of widespread unofficial ceasefires only five months into the war.

At the outset of World War I, the German attack through Belgium into France had been repelled outside Paris by French and British troops at the Battle of the Marne in early September. The Germans fell back to the Aisne valley, where they prepared defensive positions. In the subsequent Battle of the Aisne, the Allied forces were unable to push through the German line, and the fighting quickly degenerated into a stalemate; neither side was willing to give ground, and both started to develop fortified systems of trenches.

By November, there was a continuous front line running from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier, occupied on both sides by armies in prepared defensive positions. Hostilities lulled as leadership on both sides reconsidered their strategies following the stalemate of the “Race to the Sea” and the indecisive result of the First Battle of Ypres. In the week leading up to December 25, French, German, and British soldiers crossed trenches to exchange seasonal greetings and talk. In some areas, men from both sides ventured into “No Man’s Land” on Christmas Eve and day to mingle and exchange food and souvenirs. There were joint burial ceremonies and prisoner swaps, with several meetings ending in a round of carols. Men even played games of football with one another, creating one of the most memorable images of the truce.

Roughly 100,000 British and German troops were involved in the unofficial truces along the Western Front, and multiple accounts exist about this rare occasion. The following year, a few units arranged ceasefires, but the truces were not nearly as widespread as in 1914, due in part to strongly worded orders prohibiting truces from the high commands on both sides. As the war dragged on, soldiers were no longer amenable to truce by 1916.

The war had become increasingly horrifying after staggering human losses suffered during the battles of the Somme and Verdun and the use of poison gas. Nonetheless, the truce continues to inspire us today with such retellings as All is Calm: the Christmas Truce of 1914, the critically acclaimed foreign film Joyeux Noel, the Pulitzer-prize winning opera Silent Night, and even the upcoming Peter Jackson film, 1917.

English

All Is Calm by Rothstein, Frá (2022/2022), Leikstýrt af Grant Preisser,, Hljómsveitarstjóri Andrew Minear, Dr Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, Orlando, United States

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