United Kingdom PROM 6 – Verdi, Requiem: Latonia Moore (soprano), Karen Cargill (mezzo-soprano), SeokJong Baek (tenor), Solomon Howard (bass), Crouch End Festival Chorus (chorus master: David Temple), BBC National Chorus of Wales (chorus master: Adrian Partington), BBC National Orchestra of Wales / Ryan Bancroft (conductor). Recorded live (directed by Alison Bartrop) at the Royal Albert Hall, London, 23.7.2024. (JPr)
It is believed that Verdi was not a religious man and was fundamentally a man of the theatre, however, despite this, just prior to the premiere of his Requiem, he wrote to a friend: ‘I have done nothing but write note after note, to the greater glory of God … Now the music is done, and I am happy to have written it.’
Verdi was idolised by the Italians of his day and clearly knew how to manipulate the emotions of his audience in the opera house, but with his Requiem he carries this skill into the concert hall too. The work was composed to honour two men he admired: the novelist and poet Alessandro Manzoni and the conductor Angelo Mariani. Verdi’s Requiem traverses almost the complete range of human feeling in its almost ninety minutes span (actually 83 minutes here). For a sombre quasi-religious work to speak so directly and powerfully to its audience was unexpected and it had many critics after its first performance. Hans von Bülow took one look at the score and said it was ‘Verdi’s latest opera, though in ecclesiastical robes’ and Wagner had nothing to say about it when he heard it once in Vienna. Many criticised the theatricality of the work, although Verdi’s adoring Italian public could not get enough of it and later critics had differing views too. George Bernard Shaw – who had always admired Verdi’s music – suggested early in the twentieth century that none of his operas would prove as enduring as the Requiem. Suggesting that the great man of letters wasn’t always right, La traviata anybody?
At this BBC Proms performance, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales Principal Conductor Ryan Bancroft led his orchestra, a double choir and four soloists (three making their Proms debut) in a resounding account of the score. For me it seemed evenly paced with Bancroft sensitive to his singers as well as allowing every facet of the Requiem to make its true impact.
Of course, I was hearing this Requiem through TV loudspeakers and was what I heard experienced by everyone in a packed Royal Albert Hall where the Requiem had its first London performance on 12 May 1875, conducted by the composer himself. Bancroft began the work meditatively and almost too quietly even for TV though this clearly followed Verdi’s instruction to play ‘as quietly as possible’. The sound built almost imperceptibly yet steadily until the great cry of ‘Kyrie eleison’ (‘Lord have mercy on us’) from tenor SeokJong Baek. The volume was cranked up further for the fire and brimstone terrors of the Dies Irae (Day of anger) that thundered out from the orchestra and the massed ranks of the Crouch End Festival Chorus and BBC National Chorus of Wales. For the Tuba mirum, trumpets at the top of the Royal Albert Hall seemed to respond to those on the platform and everything reached a climax in this section before the bass Solomon Howard changed the mood with ‘Mors stupebit’ (‘Death shall be stunned’).
Soprano Latonia Moore and mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill combined exquisitely for ‘Recordare, Jesu pie’ (‘Recall, kind Jesus’) and some of Bancroft’s most expansive tempi were while they were singing, and the performance was all the better for it. Baek sang a resolute and impassioned ‘Ingemisco’ that was quickly followed by a portentous ‘Confutatis maledictus’ (‘When the damned are confounded’) from Solomon.
I was impressed by the preparedness of Moore and Cargill who hardly needed the scores in their hands, indeed Moore’s was so redundant that by the concluding Libera me when she sang a plaintive ‘Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death’ she had put it finally out of the way. Her contributions were my high points of this Requiem. Moore was expressive, sensitive to word colouring and apparently able to soar effortlessly to her higher registers. Moore imbued all of her contributions with suitably dramatic intensity and despite tears welling up in her eyes – deeply affecting in the TV close-up – it is clear Verdi expected any prayers for liberation from eternal death to go unheeded, as I am sure he believed there is absolutely no one to hear them. There are prayers throughout Verdi’s output, you will be able to name them, but (in order of composition) Nabucco, Rigoletto, La traviata, La forza del destino, Aida and Otello will come to mind when you listen to the Requiem.
Actually, Verdi’s original Requiem soloists – Teresa Stolz (soprano), Maria Waldmann (mezzo-soprano), Giuseppe Capponi (tenor) and Ormondo Maini (bass) were either Aida, Amneris and Ramfis in the European premiere of Aida or a Radames who would have sung in it had he not been ill. For this Prom you could equally imagine Moore, Cargill, Baek and Howard singing here in a concert performance of Aida. Cargill was impressive throughout with her full, rich, dark and authoritative mezzo and was an apt contrast to Moore’s soprano. Cargill’s highlights were ‘Recordare’, ‘Liber scriptus’, and ‘Lux aeterna’, as well her as contribution to exquisite a cappella moments such as ‘Quid sum miser’ when intonation and security of line was exceptional from those concerned.
Sadly, the two male soloists were not as good as their female counterparts: Baek did not disappoint with his ‘Ingemisco’ but had a tenor voice which sounded rather bland and lacking any refulgence. I also find Howard’s very dark, cavernous and stentorian bass over-declamatory, at least for this music, though of course he would be a perfect Ramfis!
Verdi’s theatrical sense realised that ‘it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish’ and concluded his masterpiece with the magnificent Dies irae theme once again and further reprises the elegiac opening music.
The two choirs – Crouch End Festival Chorus and BBC National Chorus of Wales – sang with their familiar impeccable diction and uniformity of phrasing and came into their own with an incandescent Sanctus. The BBC NOW Orchestra responded to Bancroft’s galvanising and batonless hands with vivid playing which was full of rich detail, notably from the woodwind, with kudos to the bright clarion brass sound and the tireless percussion.
This was a superb Prom and even if I was left unmoved – possibly just me again – it was still potent with operatic theatricality, and I believe Verdi would have been happy with that.
Jim Pritchard