Paris recreates the Theresienstadt Verdi Requiem
NewsAt the Grand Amphitheater of the Sorbonne on October 28th there will be an attempt to recapture the performance of Verdi’s Requiem that the Nazis demanded from Thereienstadt (Terezin) prisoners to fool the Red Cross that they were being well treated.
Excerpts from Josef Bor’s novel, Terezin’s Requiem (1963), will be read.
Tickets are free but must be reserved online.
That’s a bit…odd/weird?
The conductor and scholar Murry Sidlin has been doing this for over thirty years. His “Defiant Requiem” is a multi-media event that includes commentary from survivors as well as context and historical background. It is a truly moving and extraordinary experience.
https://www.defiantrequiem.org/about/mission-statement/
Credit where due: this idea was pioneered by American conductor Murry Sidlin, who researched music at Terezin extensively before premiering the concert-drama “Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezin” in Portland, Oregon, in 2002. Since then, Sidlin has conducted “Defiant Requiem” regularly, including three times at Terezin itself.
In 2012, a feature-length film of that title was premiered at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, later broadcast in the US and France, and temporarily available through Netflix.
Sidlin has recently created a new concert-drama, “Hours of Freedom: The Story of the Terezin Composer.”
There is a Defiant Requiem Foundation, which has an extensive website.
I downloaded the complete program, but unfortunately I do not read French.
The list of performers leads me to believe that the accompaniment is two pianos, and that a narrator is somehow involved.
Might someone provide some details on the “Thereienstadt version” in English?
Thank you in advance….
It was done in June in Amsterdam and before that in many other places, including Terezin
This strikes me as a very silly, if not downright distasteful idea. How can you possibly “recapture” an event like this?
Not sure it is relevant. In New York State in the USA lives the last participant in the VERDI REQUIEM that was performed in the Nazi concentration camp Theresienstadt, now located in the Czech Republic. Her name is Marianka May and her age is close to 100.