Listening to the final strains of medieval music sung from the vestibule leading to the altar and looking at the last vestiges of daylight coming through the stained glass windows at Trinity Church on Wall Street, I thought what a perfect antidote The Play of Daniel is to the crazy commercialism at Christmastime. Performed brilliantly by Gotham Early Music Scene (GEMS), The Play of Daniel is part of Trinity Wall Street’s fourth annual Twelfth Night Festival, a diverse offering of music and theater rooted in early music and extending to 21st century composition.
A drama with music, The Play of Daniel was created in the 12th century by students at the school of the Beauvais Cathedral in Northern France; it is a “medieval opera” drawing from the Old Testament Book of Daniel and telling the stories of Belshazzar’s Feast and Daniel in the Lions’ Den, but also referencing the birth of Christ. Kings, princes, envious counselors jockeying for status, satraps (aka subordinate bureaucrats), angels, a queen, two lions and Daniel, a faithful Hebrew captive at the court of King Belshazzar in Babylon, are all part of the marvelous cast of characters in the numerous short dramatic scenes comprising 70 minutes of theater. Sung in Latin, The Play of Daniel opens with a wittily staged synopsis in English, narrated by a storyteller who introduces all the characters and outlines the story. This is an immensely helpful device, establishing clarity for the audience and allowing us to relax into the story.
Director Drew Minter uses Trinity Church’s space beautifully, continually bringing the action into the audience by staging events, entrances and exits up and down the main aisle of the nave. He uses the transept and the altar areas equally as well, creating banquet halls and lions’ dens with simple stage pictures. Watching the performers, one feels as if they’ve stepped out of the pages of an illuminated manuscript. Mr. Minter has enhanced the storytelling of the singers with stylized gestures that immediately convey character and emotion. The committed sixteen member cast fills the gestures and formal staging with humanity, emotion and in the case of the envious counselors, humor. The nine instrumentalists are an intricate part of the action of the story, playing recorders, lutes, rebecs and percussion while dancing in the aisle of the nave. As the cast and musicians execute simple yet profound movement patterns, the audience is brought into the center of a joyous dance or a solemn procession.
Musical director Mary Anne Ballard has assembled a magnificent group of musicians, who sing and play with rhythmic precision, exquisite intonation and together create an ethereal sound that grabs the soul. Standouts include countertenor José Lemos as King Darius whose plaintive crescendo from a pianissimo on a single high note brought shivers to the audience, resonant bass-baritone Peter Walker as King Belshazzar, Peter Gruett, Sorab Wadia and Christopher Preston Thompson’s disdainful princes and envious counselors, Zahra Brown’s graceful dancing and Dongmyung Ahn’s haunting rebec playing.
