Hi Scott,
If you use a tripod, for high contrast scenes like this you might find it useful to bracket exposures so that you have one shot exposed for the highlights and one for the shadows. Then you can blend the two using layers in Photoshop to get something a bit less harsh.
Since you shot RAW, you might be able to squeeze a little extra detail from those highlights by using negative exposure comp in your RAW processor (the gamma control in BB, or the EC control in C1.) Then output two files as above, one for the shadows and one for the highlights, and blend in PS.
I like the idea of what you have captured here; it has very good potential. High-contrast scenes like this are difficult for digital cameras though, unless you do a work-around. (Alternatively you could walk around with a big scrim and diffuse the light when you are at the scene, but that's not too practical...
)