Verdi Bicentenary Celebrated with a Flourish

On Sunday, 28 April, the Choir gave its first subscription concert of 2013, a performance in the Sydney Town Hall of the wonderful Verdi Messa daRequiem, to celebrate the bicentenary of the great composer’s birth.

Most of the Choir’s big initiatives originate in the creative mind of our Music Director, Christopher Bowen, and are then taken up and realized by the Committee.  On this occasion, the process was reversed: the Committee first considered the proposal from a chorister for a Town Hall performance of Verdi’s masterpiece to celebrate this important musical bicentenary in 2010, during Marilyn Gosling’s presidency; the Committee was attracted by the idea but was very conscious of the financial and logistical problems in mounting  this very big work; at that time, the thinking was that any performance of the Requiem in the Town Hall should take place outside our regular subscription series, like ‘Sydney Sings Messiah’, of which at that stage we had organized only the first edition.

In 2010, the Committee also felt that the project could only be considered with the support of a major sponsor; Westfield was approached and, while unwilling to commit to the Verdi initiative, did make a very generous and useful sponsorship of the 2010 ‘Sydney Sings Messiah’concert, repeating this in 2012. Thank you, Westfield!

Subsequently, intermittent approaches were made to other companies without achieving any results and the idea may have come to nothing, had not Christopher Bowen, during the Programming Sub-Committee’s deliberations in May 2012, proposed that we should program the work in the Town Hall as part of our subscription series.

Another important moment in realizing the project was in December 2012, when Marilyn Gosling, having recently stepped down after three years of a very demanding presidency, volunteered to take responsibility for organizing it. It is fair to say that without Marilyn’s extraordinary energy and organizational skills, we wouldn’t have got there.  Thank you, Marilyn!

For several months, with the assistance of webmaster, Michael Cahill, she assiduously recruited and communicated with the guest choristers, who in the end numbered some 160, while, in any spare moments, negotiating with the Sydney City Council, and approaching sponsors. President, Evelyne de Clercq, was also tireless in her oversight of the project, and detailed management of the entire logistical exercise.  Thank you, Evelyne!

These activities were very fruitful: when the guest singers arrived for their first rehearsals with Christopher Bowen, they proved to be technically accomplished and, in many cases, at least as familiar with Verdi’s music as Grads ourselves (for example, the Joubert Singers, of Hunters Hill, elected to prepare themselves for their participation in the performance by rehearsing the Requiem as their program for the first part of the year.  Joubert’s Music Director, Rachelle Elliott, joined the Alto section of the Guest Choir). From our first joint rehearsal, Christopher Bowen was very relieved to have such a responsive and well-prepared group of singers.  We were thrilled to be joined by so many accomplished singers, who fitted so easily into our rehearsal program and style. Thank you, guest choristers!

Importantly, a generous and very helpful sponsorship was secured from Audi Alto.  Thank you, the Alto Group!

Christopher Bowen meanwhile embarked on his usual meticulous training of the Choir in Verdi’s magnificent work.  For those of us, like your correspondent, who had sung in other performances of the Requiem, Christopher revealed new layers of subtlety and significance, all of which helped to underline the greatness of Verdi’s achievement.  When the guest singers arrived, Christopher was at his genial best, making them feel welcome and valued, and obviously determined to give them a musical experience to remember. All indications are that he succeeded in this purpose.  Rehearsal pianists, Amy Putt , Mikey Curtain, and Ben Burton who filled in at the last minute for the first workshop on the 20^th April,  provided expert faithful support.  Thank you Amy,Mikey and Ben!

Without wishing to appear to disrespect or cheat our guests and indeed obeying Verdi’s own clearly stated directions in the score, the Chamber Choir was given the task of singing some of the more exposed parts of the choral score.  Ros Moxham(soprano) took charge of these rehearsals with her usual expertise and skill  Thank you, Ros!

Verdi’s work is on a grand scale and that also applies to the orchestra. Pamela Traynor (soprano) had the enormous task of engaging an orchestra of over 60 players.  The signs were very good, when the string players had a special rehearsal two days before the performance. Their sheer numbers were astonishing to this modest member of amateur choirs – eight first and second violins and violas, six cellos and (wait for it!) four double basses.  And, with Concertmaster Stan Kornel in the first desk, they sounded terrific.  The full orchestra came together for the first time with the soloists and choir, for a rehearsal on the morning of the concert and sounded fantastic.  As well as Stan, they included a number of our regular players – Inge Courtney-Haentjes (violin, who has played as Concertmaster in other of our concerts),Deborah de Graaff (clarinet), Leah Lock and Bronwen Needham (flute), Duncan Thorpe (oboe), Graham Nicholls, Tina Brain and Adrian Hallam ( horn), Melanie McLoughlin (trumpet), Michael Wyborn (trombone), and Steve Machamer (timpani).  A huge thank you to the highly gifted orchestra members, whose musical talents made such an important and fantastic  contribution to the experience for the Grads, the guest choristers and the audience!

Verdi’s work came under criticism from its premiere as being too operatic, and it is certainly true that substantial parts of the music for the soloists would not be out of place in a dramatic opera.  The two young women soloists did a terrific job. Celeste Lazarenko (soprano) has been seen principally as a baroque specialist, although she sang the solo in our performance of Mendelssohn’s Paulus in May 2012. Christopher Bowen identified potential for Celeste’s voice in Verdi’s work, believing that, while not the dramatic soprano usually cast in this role, it would have the potential to cut through and provide the clarity of tone he was seeking in this performance.  In the event, Celeste’s great high register stood her in very good stead and she demonstrated a breathtaking skill in floating a high pianissimo, that brought to mind Montserrat Caballé.  The Choir had a particular interest in the mezzo soloist, Anna Dowsley, who was singing in the concert, as a result of being honourably mentioned in the 2012 Joan Carden Award (later in 2012, Anna, a recent graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, had won the Australian Singing Competition and travelled to New York as part of her prize for winning Opera Foundation Australia’s 2012 Lady Fairfax Scholarship.)  Singing a Verdi role for the first time, Anna made a fine impression with her beautiful voice production and musicianship.  The Choir can feel gratified that, through the Joan Carden Award, it has contributed to the experience and development of this gifted young singer, who looks like a star of the future.  The Choir’s PR team, Jacqui Dropulic and David Moser, arranged interviews for Celeste and Anna in relevant local newspapers, which helped to set the scene for a successful event.  Thank you, Jacqui and David.

Russian bass Gennadi Dubinsky brought a true basso profundo quality to proceedings, very appropriate for this highly dramatic work.  Gennadi had sung a solo role in Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades, with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under Vladimir Ashkenazy in 2012.  His dark voice made a fine contrast with those of the other soloists and added a valuable note of solemnity to proceedings.

Tenor, Jason Wasley, widely experienced in this great work, came from Melbourne for rehearsals and the performance day. Suffering some indisposition for the performance, he manfully soldiered on in the best professional tradition.  We wish him a full and speedy recovery.

Thank you Celeste, Anna, Jason and Gennadi!

To top everything, the superb space of the Sydney Town Hall was almost filled to capacity.  It was obvious that the general public were enthusiastic to attend this special event. In addition to the advertisements in the press, Colin Fox gave us his usual helpful plug, while his ABC Classic FM colleague, Mairi Nicolson passed on the details of our performance to other presenters and we heard mentions on air by Emma Ayres and Christopher Lawrence.  Radio station Fine Music 102.5FM gave the concert several mentions in advance, included an article in their magazine, Fine Music, and broadcast a live interview with Christopher a few days out from the big day. Thank you ABC Classic FM and Fine Music 102.5!

This large audience may have unwittingly established a new tradition, comparable to standing up for Handel’s Hallelujah chorus, by emitting a great whoop at the end of Verdi’s virtuosic Sanctus.  This felt very appropriate in the context of the performance as that is precisely how the Choir felt at that moment.

All the ingredients finally turned out to be present, but the effort would have been in vain without the magic of the master chef, Christopher Bowen.  Christopher put in a superb and courageous effort to make it all work.  Apart from the demands on his musical skill, which again proved to be enormous and well up to the job, he was required to draw on huge reserves of physical and mental stamina. In the week before the concert, he worked in detail with the soloists, work that paid off richly in the performance. He took the chorus for an all-day rehearsal with piano on the day before and, on concert day itself, was on the podium almost all day from 9.00 am until 4.30 pm.  He never looked like losing his cool or good humour.  And the result was brilliant.  It is miraculous that a performance of this quality was achieved on the basis of one orchestral rehearsal.  THANK YOU, CHRISTOPHER!

Mixed emotions always go through one at the conclusion of the performance of a great work like Verdi’s Requiem. Pride and relief, on the one hand, regret and uncertainty on the other.  When, if ever, will one have the chance to sing it again?  Which brings me to the last and most important thank you of all.  Molto grazie, Giuseppe Verdi!

John Bowan

Verdi unchained, in Quentin Tarantino’s Day of Anger

To the heart-pounding pulse of ‘Dies Irae’ – that terrifying day of reckoning, when thundering trumpets summon the buried dead – a horde of Klu Klux Klansmen surges out of the Stygian dark, their baleful hoods lit by burning torches. Timpanies crash, brass cascades, while a stentorian chorus gallops headlong towards its fearful promise of doom.

A ‘day of anger’ indeed, even in the middle of the night! Or the comfort of the cinema.

What follows, however, is one of the more slapstick scenes of Quentin Tarantino’s latest movie, Django Unchained. The incompetent posse of hooded hoons completely bungles the vengeance they’ve got planned for rebellious slave Django (Jamie Foxx) and his bounty-hunting liberator (Christoph Waltz). Amid lashings of classic Tarantino violence – slightly moderated by a goriness that’s more theatrical than anatomical – our heroes escape the wrath of their demonic-looking but ineffectual attackers.

So for once the heart-racing drama of the chorus ‘Dies Irae’ from Verdi’s towering Messa da Requiem gets an ironic denouement, after being appropriated yet again for the cinema.

For ‘Dies Irae’ from Verdi’s Requiem is one of those pieces of the classical repertoire that are known to far, far more people than know what it is that they actually know, if you know what I mean. It joins ‘O Fortuna’ from Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, or the bluesy opening bars of Rhapsody in Blue, or Delibe’s lovely flower duet ‘Sous le dôme épais’ from the opera Lakme, which have become the signature of any number of movies and even – to the annoyance of some purists – of television advertisements.

In the case of Verdi’s ‘Dies Irae’, some of these appropriations have been in movies that have gained their own cult status, while their darker subjects have kept them from becoming household names.

The Japanese action thriller Battle Royale released in 2000 used the chorus in the overture to the film’s violent tale of high school students battling each other to the death. In the same year François Ozon’s Gouttes d’eau sur pierres brûlantes (Water Drops on Burning Rocks) came out, based on a German play by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. As its conflicted and ultimately tragic cross-gender love-affairs unfolded, ‘Dies Irae’ joined its other classical selections, including Handel’s Zadog the Priest, to set some less-than-subtle scenes.

But whatever you might think of a such movie, or its director’s motivations, cinematic quotations of classical music have inspired countless viewers to ask, ‘Wow! What was that amazing number?’ And, on finding it, to seek out and learn to love and appreciate the wider work from which it was lifted.

How many of a certain generation might never have come to relish Richard Strauss’s majestic tone poem Also Sprach Zarathustra had they never hear d its pregnant opening bars in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey?

The astounding, terrified cry of the chorus ‘Dies Irae’ recurs repeatedly throughout Guiseppi Verdi’s Requiem, but that’s only a part of this gloriously operatic work that was first performed in 1874. It brings together soprano, mezzo, tenor and baritone soloists with powerful choirs to theatrically explore the hopes and fears of humanity, from hushed prayers to stunning harmonies. These vocal forces are coming soon in their hundreds, under the baton of Christopher Bowen OAM, as he marshals the Sydney University Graduate Choir and a phalanx of additional guest choristers in Sydney’s Town Hall at 3.00 pm on Sunday 28 May.

Invite any of your friends who may have glimpsed it recently in Tarantino’s Django Unchained, but who may never have heard Verdi’s Requiem in all its drama and beauty!

Jeffrey Mellefont

SYDNEY TOWN HALL – A Musical Icon

The Sydney Town Hall has a rich musical history. Before the Sydney Opera House was opened in 1973, this sandstone architectural gem, recently superbly refurbished, was the handsome focal point of music-making in the city.

Its Grand Organ, now 120 years old, is one of the finest in the world. When it was installed, in 1890, it was the largest in the world and is still the largest ever built with tubular-pneumatic action.

For many years, the Town Hall was the performing venue of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. The legendary Australian singers, Nellie Melba, Joan Sutherland, and Peter Dawson performed there, and its stage was graced by visiting artists of the stature of Victoria de los Angeles, Leontyne Price, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Nicolai Gedda, Igor Stravinsky, Otto Klemperer, Sir John Barbirolli, Alceo Galliera, Claudio Arrau, Yehudi and Hephzibah Menuhin, David Oistrakh, and Mstislav Rostropovich.

Sydney Sings Messiah 2010

The Sydney Choir is pleased that in recent years (2007, 2010 and 2012), we have been able to play a role in reviving the Town Hall’s musical activity, by presenting large-scale community performances of Handel’s Messiah. We hope that our 28 April performance of Verdi’s Requiem will contribute to this process.

John Bowan

 

Sydney Town Hall photograph courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, taken by Greg O’Beirne, 30th January 2006.

News from Andrew Goodwin

No soloist has excited the Choir more in recent years than Andrew Goodwin, who sang the tenor roles in our performances of Mendelssohn’s Die Erste Walpurgisnacht in May 2011 and Paulus in May 2012. Members may be interested in Andrew’s recent activities and forthcoming engagements.

Andrew had studied in St. Petersburg and sung principal roles at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow before he appeared with us.  So it is no surprise that he has been back at the Bolshoi, singing Tamino in Mozart’s The Magic Flute and Alfred in Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss Junior.

In May this year, Andrew will return to Australia to appear in the Canberra Festival’s production of Peter Sculthorpe’s opera, Quiros.  In August, he will sing the role of Tom Rakewell in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress for Opera New Zealand(this is unfortunate, from the Choir’s perspective, as it has prevented us from engaging him in the role of the Evangelist in Bach’s St John Passion, for which his voice and talents would be ideal).  In October, Andrew will appear at the Port Fairy Spring Festival, with his regular piano partner, Daniel de Borah, in Schubert’s Die Winterreise.  Andrew will also be appearing with  Daniel at the Huntington Festival in November, and he will be the tenor soloist in Philharmonia’s Messiah in December and will sing again with Pinchgut Opera, as he had in 2011.

Andrew has very warm memories of appearing with Christopher Bowen and the Choir, and, circumstances permitting, would like to do so again, as would his wife, mezzo Maria Timofeeva.

John Bowan

Sing Verdi’s Requiem with us!

A few places are left to sing Verdi’s Requiem with the Grad Choir in the Sydney Town Hall on April 28^th.

Sopranos, Tenors and Basses, who, preferably, have sung the work before, but at least are experienced choristers please contact us on info@sydneysingsverdi.com for details.

The Challenge of Verdi’s Requiem

As its contribution to observing the bicentenary of the birth of the great Italian composer, Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), the Choir will open its 2013 subscription season with a performance of his choral masterpiece, the Messa da Requiem, at 3.00 pm on Sunday, 28 April in the Sydney Town Hall.

Verdi was one of the greatest composers, and played an important role in the political independence and unification of Italy.  The Requiem is a work of the composer’s maturity, being composed in the early 1870s, shortly after Aida, his most popular opera.

The work was composed in honour of the novelist and poet, Alessandro Manzoni, regarded by Verdi, along with Rossini, as ‘the glory of Italy.’ The Messa da Requiem was premiered in Milan in May 1874 on the first anniversary of Manzoni’s death.  It quickly swept Italy and the rest of Europe and is now seen as one of the towering pillars of the choral repertoire.

The forces used by Verdi in his Requiem are larger than usual for the Choir (orchestra of over 60), so large in fact that the Choir cannot mount the work in the Great Hall, our beloved musical home, but will be doing so in the Sydney Town Hall, thanks to generous support from the City of Sydney, and Audi Alto.  The Choir will invite some 200 guest singers to join it, and will present the work as a community event, as per our “Sydney Sings Messiah” concerts, described by the former Chancellor, H. E. Professor Marie Bashir, our Patron, as “a most appropriate role for a University arts body.”

Verdi’s great work makes great demands on the solo singers and an outstanding quartet, with international experience, has been assembled for this performance: Celeste Lazarenko (soprano), who has recently returned from Europe and starred in the Choir’s performance of Mendelssohn’s Paulus in May last year; young mezzo soprano, Anna Dowsley, winner of the 2012 Australian Singing Competition and highly placed in the Joan Carden Award, sponsored by the Choir, has just returned from New York where she was taking up her win in the Lady Fairfax NY scholarship; Jason Wasley(tenor) who has sung as a baritone in the UK and Europe, before returning to Australia to continue his career as a tenor with Opera Australia; and Gennadi Dubinsky (bass), who started his operatic career in Russia and has established a substantial operatic career with Opera Australia (he was a soloist in the SSO’s Queen of Spades, under Vladimir Ashkenazy, last year).

Given Verdi’s work in the theatre, as the composer of some 30 operas, some of them among the most popular in the repertoire, it is no surprise that the Requiem contains highly dramatic moments, particularly in view of the power of parts of the liturgical text, for example, the mighty Dies Irae and the desperate Libera Me (since its first performance, the work has been criticised for being ‘too operatic’). What may be more surprising is the brilliant contrapuntal technique the composer shows. Described disparagingly by his fellow-bicentenarian, Wagner, as using the orchestra like a ‘big guitar’, Verdi writes a number of brilliant fugues in the Requiem, reflecting his deep study of the Viennese classical composers, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, copies of whose string quartets he kept by his bedside. The most complex fugue in the work is that in the Sanctus, which is written for eight choral parts, and with its speed and lightness represents a big technical challenge for choir, orchestra and conductor.

The Choir’s Immediate Past President, Marilyn Gosling, has courageously taken on the challenging task of organizing this major concert, and we are fortunate to have such a committed and capable person in this important role. Music Director, Christopher Bowen, and the choristers look forward to tackling Verdi’s wonderful score and to welcoming the guest singers, who will join us for this major event.

Tickets cost $40 and are available through the Seymour Centre (9351 7940 or www.seymourcentre.com).

John Bowan

2013 Concert Season

WELCOME to a truly extraordinary concert season! We are opening our 2013 series with our most ambitious concert yet – a performance of Verdi’s great “Messa da Requiem” in the Sydney Town Hall.  Following the success of our biennial “Sydney Sings Messiah” events, we will again be inviting guest singers to join us under the banner of “Sydney Sings Verdi” on April 28^th, 2013, making this a great community event with a massed choir of over 300, this time as part of our subscription series.

Our second concert, in the Great Hall on 18^th August, features Bach’s Saint John’s Passion, a timeless masterpiece: uncompromising, rugged, direct but also very human and moving.

And finally our last concert of 2013 will feature Vivaldi’s famous Gloria and the discovery of the lesser known composer Zelenka, with his Missa Dei Patris: wonderful music from this Czech composer, a contemporary of Bach, but in his very own and beautifully distinctive style.

Have you thought about taking advantage of a Subscription? The total price for the 3 concerts is $110 (a saving of up to $14), and you also have the opportunity to order your programmes at a discounted price. In addition you will have a seat reserved in the Subscribers seating area, and may enter the Great Hall through a separate entrance, avoiding the queue!

Download a subscription brochure here, or from the blog web site.

We hope you’ll enjoy another memorable year of great choral performances with the Sydney University Graduate Choir.