2007.05.11 > PRESS INFORMATION 16th WAVE-GOTIK-TREFFEN : Verdi's „Requiem“

Verdi's „Requiem“ with an overwhelming choir of more than 150 singers

The number of tickets for WGT-guests is limited and considerably below the capacity of the venue!

Guiseppe Verdi's “Messa da Requiem” is one of the most haunting and monumental choral works. Once named as “opera in churchly robe”, the opus excels in its dramatic art and emotionality. In his requiem, Verdi composes the fright of death, melancholy and desperation by extreme musical contrasts and haunting theatrical effects. He takes the liturgical text onto an imaginary stage and stresses its dramatic and emotional elements.
Two years after the debut performance, in 1874, Verdi finished his work at the “Requiem”, a work which he was inspired to by the death of the poet Alessandro Manzoni, whom he admired and whom he wanted to create a monument by his art.
By this musical dramatic art which is known of his operas, he evokes especially in his “Dies Irae” the frightening images of death, apocalypse and perdition by a gigantic range of intensive emotions: fear, anger, pain and mourning.
However, with “Libera me” which does not belong to the fixed liturgy of the requiem and which is the aiming point of the whole opus, the music comes to a vivid, powerful and affirmative highlight: Verdi's attempt to banish the present death by means of art as shaped life. This makes his “Requiem” relevant up to current times.
Already in November of 2004, Riccadro Chailly conducted Verdi's “Requiem” in an acclaimed interpretation in Leipzig. At the 25th and 26th of May, he devotes himself again to this grandiose work with its touching meaning, gathering a new, outstanding cast of singers, with the choir and additional choir of the Leipzig Opera as well as with the Gewandhaus Choir in a production by Sören Eckhoff. By that, Chailly continues the tradition to perform Verdi's “Requiem” regularly in Leipzig, which was commenced by Arthur Nikisch in 1878.

Guiseppe Verdi – Messa da Requiem

Conductor: Riccardo Chailly
Choirmaster: Sören Eckhoff

Leipzig Opera Choir
Gewandhaus Choir
Additional choir of the Leipzig Opera

Gewandhaus Orchestra

Soprano - Ines Salazar
Mezzosoprano - Maria José Montiel
Tenor - Massimo Giordano
Bass - Ildar Abdrasakov

Friday, May 25th, 8:00 PM, Gewandhaus
Saturday, May 26th , 8:00 PM, Gewandhaus

Approximate length of time: 1 hour 30 minutes, without break