Calm Camaraderie

When holiday music starts flooding radio airwaves full time, Aaron Humble turns the dial to something else.

“A lot of what you see at Christmastime is saccharine,” says Humble while on his way to a rehearsal with the singing group Cantus. “Even some of the songs that have more depth, they are tired.”

Which is why one of the productions his vocal ensemble tackles may be finding such an enduring audience. “All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914” features a dramatic telling of an impromptu cease-fire in the trenches during World War I. Even though the show contains traditional carols such as “Silent Night,” the versions have been reworked to match both the dramatic scenes and the voices contained within Cantus, a nine-member male vocal ensemble based in Minnesota. Cantus is one of just two professional male vocal groups in the United States.

Cantus normally runs a production for a touring season, then moves on to something new. That’s still true for most of the group’s programs, but this will be Cantus’ fifth year of presenting “All Is Calm,” which is performed as a collaboration with Theater Latte Da.

An album containing the music from “All is Calm” was released in 2008. Since that time, new songs have been added to the production, providing a sense of balance among the French, British andGerman soldiers who stopped the fighting on the Western Front on Christmas Eve 1914.

Humble says Cantus owes it to the country to keep spreading the message of the Christmas truce, which wasunderreported in 1914 and declared by many military leaders to be failure of duty. Even the Pope tried unsuccessfully to arrange for a Christmas truce, but the “lowest of the low, the footsoldiers, got it done,” Humble says.

Cantus hosts an annual showing of the production in Minneapolis, an event attended by several thousand each year. A touring version visits many communities each year, and will on Thursday come to the Walton Arts Center.

Theater Latte Da members perform multiple roles during the production, with appearances by foot soldiers and many notable guests.

During the production, Cantus delivers several familiar Christmas songs, including “Angels We HaveHeard on High,” “Good King Wenceslas” and “Auld Lang Syne.” Still other songs are perhaps less familiar but provide details about the soldiers who would have been stuck in the trenches during holiday time. “Come on and Join, God Save the King,” for instance, represents English troops; “I Want to Go Home, Deutschlandlied” discusses German sentiments.

Many of them, for at least one night (and sometimes longer), found peace in the trenches.

“They found a way to have moments of gratefulness,” Humble says.