Silent Night

The First World War was one of the greatest tragedies of modern history. Opposing armies hoping for a swift conclusion to the conflict became mired in years of gruesome violence. Young men eager to fight for their countries were quickly awakened to the realities of trench warfare, where disease ran rampant and troops on both sides were hammered with machine gun fire, hand grenades, chemical weapons, and aerial attacks. Civilian casualties reached the millions, nearly equaling the number of military deaths. The grand scale of the war and its legacies—both then and now—are fitting for the operatic stage, in many ways an ideal venue for big events, big emotions, big decisions, and big consequences.

In creating their Pulitzer Prize–winning opera Silent Night, however, composer Kevin Puts and librettist Mark Campbell capture not the enactment of violence that characterized the Great War but rather a brief, improvised moment of peace amid the onslaught. “There’s so much division in the world right now, and we’re at the mercy of our leaders sometimes,” Puts remarks. “The fact is, we’re not all that different, we all want pretty much the same things. And as soon as you come face-to-face with one another, you find that there’s not that much separating us.” In the Met-premiere production of Silent Night, directed by James Robinson, dramas of family, religion, and nation play out in the trenches of the Western Front.

This guide approaches Silent Night as a vehicle for understanding the complex history of World War I, as well as the longstanding tradition of representing armed conflict in the operatic repertoire. Students will also have the opportunity to investigate questions of plot and character while connecting the music of Puts’s opera to their own personal experience. In so doing, they will come to understand how the opera builds on important historical precedents while developing original techniques for conveying the unthinkable calamity of the Great War.