Verdi’s impressive Requiem will be performed by Tampere Opera just before Easter, with the final performance being held on Good Friday. The main role in Verdi’s major work will be played by Tampere Opera’s highly acclaimed choir in addition to soloists. With a total of 110 singers performing in the Requiem, the choir will now have the opportunity to interpret the uplifting choral sections of Verdi’s work for the first time. Compared to a traditional requiem, the work is being produced in a strongly dramatic mode. The stage scenery as well as the costumes and lighting add to the dramatic events of the operatic mass.
Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) composed the Requiem (Messa da Requiem) in 1873-74 in memory of the Italian writer and national hero Alessandro Manzoni, whom he admired enormously. Manzoni’s death had such an effect on Verdi that he was unable to attend the funeral, but he expressed his feelings for his friend by composing this requiem. Verdi conducted the first performance of the work in Milan in May 1874, and soon afterwards it was performed in Paris, London and Vienna. Verdi’s Requiem is described – somewhat disparagingly – as an operatic requiem, not least because of its sensual, magnificent composition.
Together with the orchestra, the four soloists and the enormous choir, Verdi’s Requiem is a sequence of seven parts dealing with the sorrow, regrets and salvation of the day of judgement, the longing for eternal peace, and the doubting of one’s faith. After the energetic fugue with its tremendous climax, the work ends in peace and tranquillity.
Artists
Musical director Pertti Pekkanen
Stage director Jirí Nekvasil
Set and costume designer Daniel Dvorák
Choreographer Štefan Capko
Lighting designerJussi Kamunen
Chorus master Heikki Liimola
Oksana Dyka, soprano
Jordanka Milkova-Bamert, mezzo soprano
Kaludi Kaludow, tenor
Jaakko Ryhänen, bass
Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra
Tampere Opera choir
Updated: 04.02.2008
