Verdi’s Requiem to be presented April 28
The grand majesty of Verdi’s Requiem will resound in Charlottetown on April 28, 2:30 p.m., at Zion Presbyterian Church.
The performance will feature the 45 voices of the Island Choral Society, plus the members of Luminos Ensemble and the Luminos Chamber Orchestra, with soloists Georgia Edwards, Hannah O’donnell, Justin Simard and Brodie Macrae.
While Giuseppe Verdi wrote operas, he put all the drama and flair of his pen into an almost operatic setting of the funereal mass. When Italian opera great, Gioachino Rossini, died, Verdi put together a project with a dozen other composers to create a requiem. That project fell apart, but the piece Verdi wrote for it became the germ of his own Requiem.
Verdi was no stranger to mourning. Early in his career he had lost two infant children and then his young wife. But he wrote his Requiem not for them but to honour Alessandro Manzoni, a respected Italian author and patriot for whom Verdi had had a lifelong admiration.
It had its debut in May of 1874, 150 years ago.
A major reason for the Requiem’s ongoing success is the strength of emotion it evokes. It has, for example, been done in modern times as a commemorative tribute to performances that were sung in the Nazi concentration camp, Terezin.
In 2021 the Metropolitan Opera did it for the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The Island Choral Society is a choir which has impressed audiences with other major classics – Vivaldi’s Gloria in D, Fauré’s Requiem, Mozart’s Requiem and Bach’s Magnificat. The group is led by Margot Rejskind, noted for her leadership of the professional Luminos Ensemble, other vocal groups and the Luminos Chamber Orchestra, as well as her teaching.