On Saturday, April 20, the Plymouth State College Chorale will be performing Guiseppe Verdi’s Requiem Mass, in collaboration with the Manchester Choral Society under the direction of Dr. Dan Perkins, Director of Choral Activities at PSC. The ninety-minute work uses a 130-member choir, along with a 63-piece orchestra and four professional soloists.
The piece, which is one of the largest and most complex that the Chorale has ever attempted to perform, is also being performed across the world this season to commemorate the centennial anniversary of Verdi’s death in 1901. It was performed for the first time in Milan in 1874 as a tribute to the author and poet Alessandro Manzoni, who had died the year before.
The performance will take place in the Hanaway Theatre at the Silver Cultural Arts Center, and will undoubtedly be of titanic scale. The collaboration with the Manchester Choral Society was conceptualized by Dr. Perkins, who feels it will be an extremely positive experience for both choirs. “For PSC students, the collaboration provides a rare opportunity for learning and performance at the undergraduate level,” he said.
The text for the Messa da Requiem, or “Mass for the Dead,” comes directly from the Catholic funerary rites, which are still used even today, though not in Latin. Composers’ settings of this text, however, aren’t usually intended for the church, and despite the fact that Verdi used the techniques of Italian opera in his setting of the sacred text, it wasn’t intended for performance on an opera stage, either. “It really isn’t an opera,” Perkins said. “And it really isn’t just a sacred Requiem mass. And yet it is both. It is truly unique.”
Unique it may be, but it is not the first time that Plymouth State College has heard a Requiem. Fauré’s Requiem was performed in 1994, and in the Fall of 1998, the College Chorale performed the Requiem by Maurice Duruflé, also with orchestra and professional soloists. Again, in the Spring of 2000, they performed Mozart’s Requiem, this time with student soloists. When asked why PSC is so fond of Requiems, Perkins explained, “The choral/orchestral Requiems are some of the greatest works in existence, so I’m drawn to them when I look for appropriate works for the PSC choirs. Short of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, I think the Verdi is at the top of my list for major works. Is has such an amazing balance of drama, hugeness, spirituality, and subtlety.” What’s more, he says, “it’s interesting to note that very few college campuses in this country are able to mount a production of the Verdi Requiem.”
The College Chorale, which is an auditioned group this semester, has been preparing since January to perform this work. It was Perkins’ intention to dedicate the two concerts—it is also being performed in Manchester on Sunday the 21st—to the victims of September 11. “The process of preparing this monumental work took on new depth of meaning as we applied Verdi’s observations to the tragic events in our own lives,” he explains. “Verdi responds so honestly to his personal fears and doubts about death through the varied music in his Requiem. His music addresses our own fears and hopes. It is ultimately more concerned with those who are living, rather than the dead. Perhaps this can explain some of its enduring appeal and power.”
Complementing the 60-member Chorale is the Manchester Choral Society, an auditioned community chorus celebrating its 41st season this year. Normally under the direction of Lisa Wolff, it is being directed by Dr. Perkins, who is acting as a guest director for this season. Last December, they performed Beethoven’s famous Ninth Symphony, and have in the past performed such venues as St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, the University Church in Salzburg, and St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna.
In addition to the 130 choristers, the performances will be supplemented with a 63-piece orchestra, which includes over thirty stringed instruments and a group of offstage trumpeters. Despite the enormity of this group of musicians, Perkins stresses that it is the smallest group that could possibly be used for the performance. “It really is a huge work,” he states.
Rounding everything off are four soloists, ranging from all across the east coast, from right here in Plymouth all the way to the Baltimore and Washington, D.C. area. Eva Nagorka, an adjunct instructor of Voice in the PSC Music and Theatre department, is one of the soloists performing the work. She has performed in more than ten operatic roles, and has performed at venues such as the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Also performing are soprano Debra Lawrence, from Baltimore, Maryland, tenor Paul McIlvaine and bass Ray Karns, both from New York.
An interesting thing to note is that a choir in Oregon is performing the Verdi Requiem, also on the 20th and 21st of April. This group is performing it in commemoration of the Terezin concentration camp, which held Jews during World War II. Detainees rehearsed the work at night and in secret, with only a single copy of the score and a piano with no legs, not knowing whether they were going to be there the next day or not, and never knowing if they would ever get to perform it. Despite the oddity of a collection of Jews rehearsing a Catholic mass for performance, they continued on, knowing that it was the only thing that would continue to give them hope. Eventually, German officials caught wind of their efforts, and decided to let them perform the work, because they felt it was good public relations. Some even joked that the Jews were performing their own Requiem. The performance of the work in honor of those people is a celebration of their bravery and courage, and is to be witnessed by some of the former detainees who performed it so many years ago.
The most exciting aspect of this performance, Perkins says, is the collaboration between the groups. He is especially excited of the message that this sends to prospective students and other colleges or groups. “By involving the Manchester Choral Society, Concord Community Music School, Plymouth State College, and professional soloists from Baltimore, New York and Plymouth, and orchestra members from across New England, we send a strong message that PSC’s impact is wide-ranging.”
Dr. Perkins’ plans for next year are no less ambitious than were this season’s plans. “I’m looking at Randall Thompson’s
A Peaceable Kingdom, another major choral work, for next Spring,” he said. “I’d also like to do more early music, using period instruments—Monteverdi, perhaps.”
This Requiem performance will be the culmination of many months’ planning, and ultimately will provide an opportunity for PSC students to access a form of cultural art that they might not have been able to see otherwise. The performance will be Saturday, April 20 at 8:00 p.m., and tickets for PSC students are $12, with ticket costs for the general public at $20. The work will also be performed at St. Marie’s Church in Manchester on Sunday, April 21 at 4:00 p.m. Tickets there are $20 for the general public and $18 for students (in advance), and $25 at the door.
Perkins makes one final note by saying, “I see this collaborative spirit as a symbol of peace and love among all mankind, and a remembrance of the image of what the lack of love is like, as exemplified in the events of September 11. Leonard Bernstein is quoted as saying, ‘This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.’”