(Update: This video will return on December 25th and will be able to be played until December 31st. Thank you! ) It's Day Two of our Virtual Advent Calendar and Jessica and Chad Augustine are here to perform O, Holy Night for you!
The Augustines live in Bristol, WI with their darling daughter and shaggy dog. Although Jessica has been performing since she was a child, this is Chad’s first time performing publicly. Chad and Jessica have been married for eight years, and enjoy traveling, hiking, and making up silly songs.
If you like what you see, please join us tomorrow for a new holiday offering, and help us with our goal of creating a traveling wagon stage to bring theatre to you in 2021!
Did you know, according to Wikipedia ... Placide Cappeau, who wrote the poem Minuet, chretiens (O, Holy Night), suffered through an accident which occurred when he was eight years old, while "playing" with his friend Brignon. The young Brignon was handling a gun and shot Cappeau in the hand. This led to the young Cappeau having to undergo an amputation of his hand. Thanks to the financial support from Mr Brignon who supplied half of tuition, Placide Cappeau was able to attend a town school and was accepted into the Collège Royal d’Avignon. While there, in spite of his disability, he was awarded the first prize in drawing in 1825.
After studying in Nîmes, where he received a baccalauréat littéraire (A level in literature), he studied law in Paris and was awarded a license to practice law in 1831.
Following in his father's footsteps, to an extent, he became a merchant of wines and spirits. However, his focus in life was literature.
According to Placide, he wrote the poem "Minuit, chrétiens" (O Holy Night) in a stagecoach to Paris, between Mâcon and Dijon. More likely, this famous Christmas carol was written by Cappeau in the usual way. Adolphe Adam (who wrote the music for the song) called his tune "la Marseillaise religieuse" (The religious Marseillaise), reflecting the republican and anti-clerical (secular), and even somewhat socialist views of Cappeau, which reflect the spirit of the original poem.