Saint Nicolas? Oh, you mean SANTA CLAUS!

He’s the patron saint of materialism, putting chocolate in shoes, and giving cheap plastic toys to undeserving brats … right?

 St. Nicolas is one bad-ass saint; the legends about him range from the mildly interesting to the outrageous. The legend from which Santa Claus comes originated as Nicolas giving a poor man coins to pay for his daughters’ dowry, thus preventing them from being forced into prostitution; in order to be discreet, Nicolas tossed the purses through a window and into the man’s house at nighttime. It is also said that he punched the leader of the Arian heresy at the council of Nicaea (a meeting where the early Christians sought to clearly define their faith, resulting in the Nicene creed). Just your typical meeting of bishops, ending in a brawl, that’s all. And then, the greatest legend of them all … the pickled boys.

There’s a famine throughout the land – everyone is hungry. A desperate cook kills three boys, butchers them, and pickles their flesh. Nicolas shows up in town, and the people offer him some tasty meat. Nicolas, in a vision, realizes what is being served – he stops the feast immediately. He calls to the barrels containing the pickled boy flesh, and the meat comes back together and becomes three boys again. Naturally, the resurrected boys begin to sing the praises of God.

Benjamin Britten wrote a cantata based on the legends of Nicolas in 1948. He could have ignored  these impossible-to-believe legends and produced a work of religious piety. Instead, Britten sets the legends in a fun way which pokes fun at the exaggerated medieval stories and the difficulties of modern faith. The result is in a marvelous work which is both pious and frivolous, serious and fun, sincere and goofy.