Verdi Requiem at Symphony Orchestra concert

The Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka will open its 52nd Season with a landmark concert of a single work - Verdi's magnificent Requiem - at the Anglican Cathedral, Bauddhaloka Mawatha on Saturday 7th March (7pm). Such is its scale, it has been performed only once before in Sri Lanka, in 1971.

The international Conductor Gregory Rose will direct the performance with a fine quartet of solo singers working overseas, a large SOSL orchestra augmented by visiting specialist instrumentalists, and a Symphony Orchestra Chorus of nearly 100 voices which combines the forces of seven leading choral societies of Colombo and Kandy.

The concert's main sponsor is the Dr. Earle de Fonseka Trust, and is in memory of Dr. Earle who conducted SOSL for over forty years. Admission is free of charge.

Verdi composed twenty eight operas which today provide the back bone of the repertoire of opera houses all over the world. They include such wonderfully tuneful and dramatic works as La Traviata, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, Otello and Aida. The Requiem is his only major work not written for the stage and its composition was inspired by events which moved him very deeply.

In 1873 Alessandro Manzoni the influential Italian poet, novelist and hero died of cerebral meningitis. Verdi was so saddened by his death, that he did not attend the public funeral in Milan, but instead paid his respects alone at the grave. Grief-stricken, but inspired by the death of his friend, Verdi began composing the Requiem, completing a work of grandeur and sweeping scope in less than a year. The premiere was on May 22, 1874, the first anniversary of Manzoni's death, at the Church of San Marco in Milan. Vast crowds were outside the church, and those lucky enough to get in were profoundly moved. Other performances followed quickly throughout Europe.

The Requiem opens with a whispered prayer for the dead. The unaccompanied chorus fugue at Te decet hymnus is followed again by the prayer, before the soloists begin an impassioned plea for mercy with the Kyrie.

The core of the work, the Dies irae (day of anger, day of terror), is subdivided into nine sections which give a horrifying depiction of judgment day. Verdi's genius in heightening the emotions of the words is breathtaking: the four colossal thunderbolts seemingly from heaven introducing the tempestuous vision in the Dies irae; the trumpet crescendo of the Tuba mirum summoning the dead to their maker; and the final expression of grief in Lacrymosa passed between the soloists and chorus.

The final movement begins with an anguished, passionate soprano cry - Libera me, Domine (Lord, deliver me). It is full of emotion: grief, fear, guilt, despair, hope and repentance.

The Dies irae theme returns, as does the opening Requiem passage for soprano and chorus. The Requiem closes as it began, in almost spoken prayer.

The four remarkable solo singers in the Requiem are Kishani Jayasinghe, Soprano, the first Sri Lankan to perform as a soloist at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden; Gayathrie Patrick, Mezzo Soprano, a frequent award winner at international festivals and competitions in England and Wales; Amar Muchhala, Tenor, a graduate of London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama Opera Course, now embarking on an international opera career; and Dhilan Gnanadurai, Bass, a recent Graduate and Post Graduate at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he won several scholarships and awards, who performs as a soloist in a wide range of oratorio works.