Giuseppe Verdi : Messa Da Requiem In memoriam Terezin Ars Musici AM 5083 1/1998 (live) 76 Mins |
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Olga Romanko, (Soprano) Liliana Bizineche, (Mezzo Soprano) Aquiles Machado, (Ténor) Simon Yang, (Basse) Prague Chamber Chorus Czech Philharmonic Chorus German Youth Philharmonic Orchestra Gerd Albrecht |
Defiant Requiem tells the
little-known story of the Nazi concentration camp, Terezin. Led by imprisoned
conductor Rafael Schächter, the inmates of Terezin fought back...with art and
music. Through hunger, disease and slave labor, the Jewish inmates of Terezin
hold onto their humanity by staging plays, composing opera and using paper and
ink to record the horrors around them.
This creative rebellion reaches its
peak when Schächter teaches a choir of 150 inmates one of the world's most
difficult and powerful choral works, Verdi's Requiem, re-imagined as a
condemnation of the Nazis. The choir would ultimately confront the Nazis face to
face... and sing to them what they dare not say.
For over ten years,
conductor Murry Sidlin has dreamed of bringing the Requiem back to Terezin. Now,
through soaring concert footage, powerful survivor recollections, cinematic
dramatizations and evocative animation, DEFIANT REQUIEM brings the incredible
story of this artistic uprising to life.
The concert-drama, Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín,
tells the story of the courageous Jewish prisoners in the Theresienstadt
Concentration Camp during World War II who performed the famous Verdi
Requiem Mass while experiencing the depths of human degradation. With
only a smuggled score, they performed the famous oratorio sixteen times,
including one performance before senior SS officials from Berlin and a Red
Cross delegation. Conductor Rafael Schächter told the choir, “We
will sing to the Nazis what we cannot say to them.”
The concert was
conceived and created by Foundation President, Maestro Murry Sidlin. The
concert combines the magnificent music of Verdi with testimony from
survivors of the original chorus and footage from a Nazi propaganda film on
Theresienstadt. The performance also includes actors who speak the
words of imprisoned conductor Rafael Schächter and other prisoners. This is
not just another performance of the Verdi Requiem, but a tribute to the
inspired leadership of Rafael Schächter who was forced to reconstitute the
choir three times as members were transported to Auschwitz. The
performances came to symbolize resistance and defiance and answering the
worst of mankind with the best of mankind. The performance
is powerful, dramatic and inspirational, with a contemporary message of hope.
The story of Terezín unfolds between each section of the Verdi score.
The final concert/drama, running two hours without intermission, explains
why the performances in 1943 and 1944 provided a beacon of hope for the
prisoner choir and its audience.
Following a 2010 performance at the
Kennedy Center, Washington Post reviewer Stephen Brooks wrote, “Murry
Sidlin’s setting of the music, incorporating film of the camp, interviews
with survivors, and actors describing the dramatic background, was handled
with both dignity and power, and pushed the requiem to even more harrowing
depths and exalting heights.”
The Defiant Requiem has been
performed at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in
Washington DC, Budapest, Hungary and three times at Terezín as well as other
cities in the United States.
The script is copyrighted and the
performance is only available by agreement with the Defiant Requiem
Foundation.