Verdi’s ‘Requiem’ is a must-see!
Nearly 200 performers will appear at Season Opening Spectacular.
The folks at the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance are certain their upcoming take on Verdi’s “Requiem” will be the one of the first of its kind in the world.
At 8 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 16, and 3 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 17, hundreds of performers will come together on the Schuster Center’s Mead Theatre stage to present the 2017–2018 Season Opening Spectacular. Verdi’s “Messa da Requiem” is known as the most theatrical requiem ever composed. The musical setting of the Roman Catholic funeral mass is written for four soloists, double choir and orchestra.
“Every performance of the Verdi ‘Requiem’ is special. It’s one of the most amazing, most powerful, most dramatic, most beautiful pieces I know,” says Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra conductor Neal Gittleman. “But this one will be unlike any of the others because of the staging and the dancing. We’re taking a piece that’s ‘theater of the imagination’ and making it into actual theater onstage. That will make it very exciting and very different from any Verdi ‘Requiem’ I’ve ever heard, sung, played, or conducted. I can’t wait!”
Gittleman says the music runs the gamut from “almost-silent” to “all-hell-breaking-loose loud.”
“It’s high-emotion music, just like his operas,” Gittleman says. “Maybe even more so. Extra trumpets don’t hurt either!”
Coming up with a new idea
DPAA president and CEO Paul Helfrich says when the three performing arts groups first joined together, the hope was to present collaborative performances that had never been seen before in Dayton. Verdi’s “Requiem” seemed a perfect vehicle.
“The ‘Requiem’ is a frequently performed concert work in this country — usually by orchestras, sometimes by opera companies,” Helfrich explains. “It’s always done in a traditional, visually static concert presentation. But because it is filled with drama and has a closer connection to Verdi’s operatic stage works than it does with traditional Requiem settings, we decided to bring Dayton audiences a bold new inter--
pretation of a familiar classic with this innovative take.”
Adding dance
Surrounding the soloists will be the 19 dancers of the Dayton Ballet, including five new members of the troupe.
“The addition of dance will visually enhance the full emotion of Verdi’s masterpiece,” says the Ballet’s artistic director Karen Russo Burke. “This is quite an excit
ing event for the company as we have not been a part of a Requiem before.”
Burke says this opportunity allows her company to dig deeper into more emotionally-driven choreography. “With the power of the chor usb ehind us and the principal singers among us it will drive the energy of the danced sect ions to a new and fantastic level.”
Taking the stage
Dayton Opera’s artistic director Thomas Bankston says the piece won’t “literally” be staged; there won’t be a story line and the solo- ists won’t be turned into characters. “Our intention is for the soloists to present the texts they sing — not as just recitations of the liturgical texts, but rather as heightened and sincere first-per- son expressions.”
Opera excerpts will be per- formed in Latin with English surtitles. Unlike most concert presentations, the full Dayton Philharmonic will be in the pit. The stage will be set up with the Dayton O p era Chorus and the Dayton Philharmonic Cho- rus chorus on risers at the back of the stage — more than 150 singers in all.
Bankston says the featured soloists — who typically remain on stage through the entire 90-minute perfor
mance — will instead enter and exit for various solos, duets, and ensembles. They include soprano Danielle
Pastin , who last performed locally in 2016 as Desdemona in “Otello;” mezzo-soprano
Audrey Babcock, who portrayed “Carmen” in May and bass Nathan Stark, who appeared as the toreador Escamillo in “Carmen” last May.
Tenor John Pickle, who has been seen in concert with
the DPO, as Capt. Pinkerton in “Madame Butterfly” and most recently as the lead in “I Pagliacci” in 2016, says the DPAA’s unique collaborative spirit makes Dayton a “space for artistic growth.”
“I’ve p e rformed this “Requiem” many times, I just did it in Barcelona in July,” says Pickle. “I’ve never seen it staged before. At the core, it’s a big, operatic, dramatic piece and when you add all of these theatrical elements, it will be even more powerful!”