IU prepares to offer rare dose of Verdi to local audiences
February 24, 2008
by Peter Jacobi
If you’re a Verdiphile like me, you always wait for the announcement of what the IU Opera Theater has planned for the season to come.
Sometimes, we’re lucky, but often we lose out locally because so few of Giuseppe Verdi’s operas are designed for young singers. For vocalists still developing the beef and cream in the instrument which God or providence endowed them with, there are, I’d say, three (“Rigoletto,” “Traviata,” “Falstaff”). And how often are these going to be repeated in the IU schedule? Some seasons, we’re going to lose out.
I shouldn’t even mention the operas of Wagner, in that their roles are prizes to be plucked way later in a singer’s career.
This coming week, we’ll find out what operas are to be performed at the Musical Arts Center in season 2008-9, and I’ll pass along the details in next Sunday’s column. But for now, I’m going to be satisfied with an event in the MAC on Wednesday evening: a good dosage of Verdi in the form of what some have called his un-staged opera. It’s his glorious Requiem, stuffed from start to finish with arias and ensembles and choruses as melodic and emotionally charged as any he ever wrote for his operas.
This is a master work in anyone’s estimation, a grandly-scoped piece inspired less by God — Verdi was an agnostic, alienated from his Catholic faith — but by two men he idolized: his predecessor in the world of Italian opera, Gioacchino Rossini, and the esteemed Italian poet, novelist, and statesman, Alessandro Manzoni. Often, the work is referred to as the “Manzoni Requiem.”
Verdi wrote it following the death in 1873 of Manzoni, a death that grieved him so much that he could not get himself to the funeral. He explained that “there will have been few on that morning more sad and moved than I was, although far away. Now all is ended! And with him ends the most pure, the most holy, the most lofty of glories.”
As he set about to compose, he turned first to the “Libera me” (“Deliver me, Lord, from eternal death”), the closing section of his Requiem. It happened to be music already partially completed, he having prepared it after Rossini’s death five years earlier. At that time, deeply affected, he had suggested to fellow Italian composers that they collaborate on a Requiem Mass to honor the fallen master. The project came to naught because of squabbles about who should contribute what, but Verdi’s portion was done and lives on, in revised form, as the intensely moving finish for his tribute to Manzoni.
William Jon Gray, director of choral activities in the Jacobs School, will conduct Wednesday’s performance, involving the 85-member Philharmonic Orchestra, the 130-voice strong Oratorio Chorus and a quartet of soloists. He’ll repeat the performance on Saturday in Indianapolis, but with a second solo foursome.
“There’s no other music school,” says Gray, “that could credibly double cast the Requiem. We have such wonderful talents. And what a privilege it is for me to introduce this masterpiece to students. It will be a first for most of them. They’ll take away an unforgettable experience.”
Gray says rehearsals have “gone famously because a piece like this always energizes. It’s a great joy that we can do this and give them an opportunity to take part in offering one of the greatest choral compositions of all time.”
He calls the Requiem “really fascinating on several levels. It honors two men he idolized. It’s distinguished by superb contrapuntal writing. Verdi wanted his share of hummable melodies, but in paying tribute to Rossini — who wrote fugues in both his ‘Stabat Mater’ and ‘Petite messe solennelle’ — he wanted to enrich his work with fugues. What resulted is truly fine counterpoint, rivaling that of any German composer.”
Gray points also to “an interesting theological tension. Verdi presents a faithful rendition of the Catholic service. There is much traditional Italian Catholicism, and yet, there is a pull as he ponders, through his music, about the afterlife. His Requiem is an examination of life and death, of what’s beyond. There is more question than answer here. There is doubt as well as faith. Verdi, with his great knowledge of the human condition, considers the role of death in our lives. What one gets is compelling psychologically, theologically, religiously.
“In the Requiem,” adds Gray, “one gets — together with Verdi’s ‘Otello,’ ‘Falstaff,’ and ‘Four Last Pieces’ — the ultimate summing of his art.” The conductor’s interpretative approach “is to emphasize the lyricism in the music. Yes, there are powerful, cataclysmic moments, but Verdi’s music is all about singing and subtleties, about suspense and wonder concerning what comes next, about tenderness and quiet and the beauty of the vocal line. That’s what we hope to stress.”
Incidentally, though the Requiem had its premiere in a church, Milan’s Church of San Marco (chosen for its excellent acoustics), one year to the day after the death of the man it honored, three days later, it was repeated at La Scala, the city’s world-famed opera house. Ever since, because Verdi did not consider the work liturgical and also because of its scope, this Requiem has become far more a favored attraction in theaters than places of worship. And it’s to a theater, the MAC, we’ll go on Wednesday. In Indy, however, the performance will unfold in a church. Either place, may the music take you emotionally wherever you wish. That’s what Verdi would have wanted.
The Indiana University Jacobs School of Music would like
to thank the Herald Times for permission to republish this review.
