Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Messa da Requiem

The Perth Symphonic Chorus and Perth Philharmonic Orchestra with a fine quartet of local soloists deliver a satisfactory Verdi Requiem. 

Returning to the first work he officially conducted as the Philadelphia Orchestra's Music Director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin offers a powerful study in contrasts, supported by a superb quartet of opera soloists.

All the hallmarks of a Muti performance are on display as the maestro returns to conduct the Philharmonia Orchestra in a magnificent reading of Verdi's Requiem. 

After a 19-year absence, the legendary conductor returned to the podium of the Philadelphia Orchestra, leading an inconsistent performance of a signature work.

An outstanding choral performance by nearly 300 singers of the BBC National Chorus of Wales and the Crouch End Festival Chorus lights up Verdi’s hybrid of opera and devotional music.

Thomas Søndergård conducts a Verdi Requiem in Edinburgh's Usher Hall where the component parts rarely cohere as a whole. 

Soprano and mezzo Natalya Romaniw and Alice Coote top a strong line-up in Verdi's Requiem in Manchester's Bridgewater Hall.

A Verdi Festival account where the orchestral detail registers with true distinction and the singing impresses. 

For whatever reason Fabio Luisi chose Verdi's Requiem for his inauguration concert with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo, it turned out to be an apt and poignant choice.

A huge hall, a huge orchestra and a huge chorus letting rip with a monster of the choral repertoire… We've missed this. 

An excitingly theatrical Verdi Requiem under Giordano Bellincampi, benefitting greatly from a mostly stunning line-up of solo singers.

This Requiem was a gift to Music Director Corrado Rovaris for the anniversary of his twenty years with the company.

Christian Spuck revisits Verdi’s sublime Messa da Requiem with a host of gifted dancers and singers at the Zurich Opernhaus.

In Currentzis' vision, Verdi's Requiem was both a spectacle and a soul-searching exercise for the musicians, as well as for the listeners.

London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir paint a terrifying picture of hell and damnation at the Royal Festival Hall.

Riccardo Muti conducted a stirring performance of Verdi's Requiem to mark the 30th anniversary of Karajan's death.

Angela Meade shone in the soprano solo, beautifully backed by leader Tamas Kocsis, in the passage that segues into the stunning "Abraham thou didst promise" section.

The musicians of MusicAeterna were impassioned, engaged and energised into a single force in this performance of Verdi's Requiem at the Aix Easter Festival.

Perhaps feeling that the drama and emotion of the Ring Cycle wasn't enough for one year, Antonio Pappano assembled a strong quartet and deployed the ROH's forces in a powerful, moving performance of Verdi's Messa da Requiem.

This concert was inevitably the sum of far more than its parts, and not for nothing are the Monteverdi Choir and the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantiquem, regarded as among the best in the world

A quartet of superb soloists shine through an orchestral and choral performance of great precision to bring out Verdi’s powerful evocation of the terror of eternal damnation.

Domingo Hindoyan conducts a cast of Swedish performers in Verdi’s masterpiece, for the Baltic Sea Festival.

The Met Opera's concert performance of Verdi's Requiem was an emotional tribute to Dmitri Hvorostovsky. 

A vividly dramatic take on Verdi's Requiem by Opera Australia allows chorus and orchestra to shine under Renato Palumbo, and reminds us why the work has been called “opera in church clothing”.

Verdi’s masterpiece dazzled a packed Festival Hall on Thursday night. 

Music-making in the concentration camp at Theresienstadt/Terezín continues to fascinate, baffle and inspire us.

Gianandrea Noseda leads a fiery account of Verdi's “opera in ecclesiastical garb” to open the LSO's new season.

In the penultimate concert of the 2016 Proms, Marin Alsop drew together some impressive forces for Verdi's Requiem, led by the remarkable soprano Tamara Wilson.

In celebration of the Atlanta Symphony's long-term music director Robert Shaw, the orchestra, its celebrated chorus and four effective soloists, presented an aggressive and often loud Verdi Requiem, conducted by Robert Spano.  

Sir Mark Elder conducts the Hallé in a fine account of Verdi's Requiem at the Bridgewater Hall

A seamless combination of State Opera of South Australia and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra have created a Verdi Requiem the equal of which it would be hard to find.

We find Donald Runnicles and his BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra on fine form for a dramatic Verdi Requiem, packed with magical sound pictures and lashings of all-important terror. 

An all-Dutch Verdi Requiem with soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek makes a heartfelt case for music as an antidote to war.

A thrilling evening at Poole’s Lighthouse with the BSO and Chorus plus a quartet of superb soloists, conducted by Kirill Karabits in an unforgettable performance of Verdi’s Requiem. 

Soprano Amber Wagner debuts with a flair that reminds us that Verdi's Requiem has dramatic roots.

New York Philharmonic under its music director Alan Gilbert delivered an impressive performance of Verdi's famous Requiem, with an excellent ensemble of soloists and chorus.

Teatro Regio in Turin paid its first seasonal tribute to Giuseppe Verdi with an engaging execution of the Messa da Reqiuem.

Hans von Bülow taunted that Verdi’s Requiem was just another of his operas “in ecclesiastical garb’”. It’s difficult to disagree when dispatched with as much operatic fervour as Antonio Pappano mustered here. 

Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin invokes an unattainable glimpse of heaven in a uniquely crafted Verdi Requiem. 

Riccardo Muti conducts Verdi's Requiem in Madrid and forever changes the lives of the audience that witnessed in astonishment.

The Latin Requiem traverses a series of emotional responses to death, ranging from astonishment and dread to humility and gratitude. Verdi’s Messa da requiem contains all of these ingredients but in different proportions to many other well-known settings. Written by an agnostic, it is more earthly than spiritual in outlook, and fear and trembling predominate.

The greatest bass drum part ever written, the thundering Wrath of God, shook War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco Friday night in a thrilling performance of Verdi’s Requiem. Embracing the vivid extremes of Verdi’s great work, conductor Nicola Luisotti marshaled the wonderfully unruly forces of the largest ensemble ever assembled on the venue’s stage.

We celebrate this year the bicentennials of two of the most influential composers of the 19th century. Yet celebrations in Amsterdam have been rather one-sided so far.

Apart from the precious Quattro pezzi sacri, Verdi wrote very little sacred music until this Requiem, probably due to his agnosticism. When Alessandro Manzoni, one of the most important and admired Italian literary figures, died on the 22nd of May 1873, Verdi felt that something in the Italian cultural world had come to an end.

“The most beautiful sound an audience can make,” Dudamel told the expectant masses, “is silence.” They chuckled knowingly. Dudamel’s request was borne out of the obvious production being made of Tuesday night’s performance. The giant boom and manned onstage cameras indicated that the performance was indeed being filmed.

The Verbier Festival Orchestra is the centrepiece of the festival from which it takes its name. Hundreds of young players hoping to start a professional orchestral career audition each year for the chance to work with big-name conductors, the likes of which this year include Charles Dutoit, Valery Gergiev, Gábor Takács-Nagy, and, for this concert, Gianandrea Noseda.

No surprise to find a Verdi programme at the Proms in his bicentenary year, but what was unusual was the focus on sacred music, given his antipathy towards the church as demonstrated in his more prolific output, his operas.

On Thursday, a polar storm swept up New Zealand doing major damage to Wellington and, in the process, trapped the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra there as they prepared to fly to Auckland.

Every once in a while, I hear a concert that grips me from the first note and doesn’t let go until the very last. Daniele Gatti and the Philharmonia’s performance of Verdi’s Requiem at the Royal Festival Hall was such a concert.There are some caveats to make: I’m not catholic, I’m not very religious and I’m not particularly steeped in the tradition of liturgical music.

Faith and glamour have bookended this year’s Salzburg Festival, a move met with incredulity in certain quarters and yet one not entirely alien to Austrian customs, if one looks to the 20 or so most glittering events of the Viennese ball season, which is promptly curtailed by Ash Wednesday (still observed by much of the population here with high Catholic asceticism).