In 1871, after Aida, Giuseppe Verdi went into retirement, in his farm in Sant’Agata. Two years later the Italian poet and author Alessandro Manzoni died. Manzoni represented the literary spirit of Italy, a beloved public figure, admired by the whole country. Verdi had a sincere veneration for the poet, with whom he shared patriotic ideals and political stances and decided to honour him with the composition of a Requiem Mass, to be performed on the first anniversary of the writer’s death.
The music Verdi wrote to celebrate the man he so much admired is pure, distilled emotion, from humble hope to despair and rage. This is the prayer of a man convinced that God, if he does exist, is not listening. Verdi’s music tries to draw God’s attention by setting up a performance of a grandeur almost out of place in church music, as many critics have observed. The result is a composition of great theatrical character, one of the greatest achievements of the Italian master.
The Baltic Sea Festival, in Stockholm, presented a performance with Swedish artists under the baton of a Venezuelan conductor, Domingo Hindoyan, who led the Royal Swedish Orchestra, from the Kungliga Operan, in an energetic reading of the score, which perhaps lacked nuance and sophistication. Verdi’s score features many details worth underlying with accurate phrasing and suitable highlighting; the impression was that sometimes these details were glanced over and not emphasised. An example would be the famous bassoon solo in Quid sum miser, or the repeated notes the flute interpolates in the Recordare, or the many acciaccature, reminiscent of Aida, disseminated in the score.
The quartet of soloists included singers heard at the Stockholm and Göteborg Opera. The most Verdian voice of the four was mezzo soprano Miriam Treichl, who impressed with a warm, burnished middle and low voice, and a perfect legato. Her Liber scriptus in particular was intense and emotional.