By Laura Kennelly
The creation of Verdi’s monumental “Messa di Requiem” sprang from a mix of good intentions and homages to dead composers, but the final result, presented last month by the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus, was breathtaking in a red-velvet, break-out-the-big drums, celebrate the fabulous Cleveland Orchestra music-making, cue-the-gloriously-voiced-soloists way.
The Cleveland Orchestra’s final home concert of the season, in a word, Wow!
Robert Porco, Director of the Cleveland Orchestra choruses, conducted. The massive choir of 150 (plus) and the Cleveland Orchestra made Verdi’s masterwork a beautiful, spirited, and vocally showy creation more at home in an opera hall than a cathedral. Originally, the work was intended to be part of a requiem mass honoring the recently-deceased composer, Rossini. That project failed, but after Italian poet Alessandro Manzoni died, Verdi decided to add to the work he’d done for the joint project and write a complete work in the poet’s honor. It was first heard in the Milan church of San Marco in 1874 and the next nights in La Scala.
Among the many high points, perhaps the “Dies Irae” (Part II) best exemplifies the stunning blend of opera and the sacred we heard that night. The opening “day of wrath” sequence, with the choir singing all-out like a pack of furies and the orchestra (trumpets and drums, including a brass drum! pounding away) smashed into an assertive, dramatic call to God. Later, after bass Raymond Aceto sternly warned that “death and nature will be stupefied,” the delicate beauty of a (surprisingly secular and) delicious duet with Liudmyla Monastyrska, soprano and Michelle De Young?, mezzo-soprano, gave respite as they begged for grace and mercy. Then tenor Dimitri Pittas, sang tenderly, but heroically, asking the same thing, followed by bass Raymond Aceto and then the chorus weighed in again, as they asked again with big voices that they be spared on “that day of wrath.” All four soloists sang with nuance and superb vocal texture and control.
It was all over in 90 minutes; I felt as if I’d been in church and to the opera in one economical, thrilling swoop. I want to hear it again.
Speaking of hearing the Cleveland Orchestra again, it’s almost time for its annual free performance in downtown Cleveland at Public Square. This year’s “July the 4th” concert will be on Monday, July the 2nd. Jahja Ling will conduct (and yes, Tchaikovsky’s “1812” Overture and fireworks afterward are still part of the program). The concert starts at 9 p.m., but lots of pre-concert festival events start at 5 p.m. It’s one of the best free family-friendly shows in town.
The Orchestra’s summer concerts at Blossom Music Center in Akron begin at 8 p.m. July 3 and July 4. Tickets for the Blossom events may be ordered by calling 800-686-1141 or at clevelandorchestra.com
Laura Kennelly is a freelance arts journalist, a member of the Music Critics Association of North America, and an associate editor of BACH, a scholarly journal devoted to J. S. Bach and his circle.Listening to and learning more about music has been a life-long passion. She knows there’s no better place to do that than the Cleveland area.