Organization

Conductor

Isaac Selya

Singer

Soprano

Mithra Mastropierro

Mezzo-soprano

Anahita Ahsef

Tenor

M Andrew Jones

Bass

Kenneth Shaw

Orchestra

Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

Queen City Opera

Defiant Requiem

Cincinnati

United States

Cincinnati Music Hall

Defiant Requiem: Messa da Requiem Verdi

Public

Requiem Mass

Approved

Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín, a profoundly moving multimedia concert-drama, combines the magnificent music of Verdi with video testimonials and narration, to tell the story of the courageous Jewish prisoners in the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp (Terezín) who performed the celebrated Verdi Requiem while experiencing the depths of human degradation. With only a smuggled score, they performed the famous oratorio sixteen times, including one performance before senior SS officials from Berlin and an International Red Cross delegation. Conductor Rafael Schächter told the choir: “We will sing to the Nazis what we cannot say to them.”

Created and written by Murry Sidlin, Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín features a full performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem Mass, video testimony from survivors of the original chorus, segments of the Nazi propaganda film made at Terezín in 1944, and actors to relay the impassioned story of how and why these Jewish prisoners, who faced death every day, chose to learn and perform a Latin, Catholic mass during their darkest hours.

English

Defiant Requiem by Verdi, From (2022/2022), Conductor Isaac Selya, Cincinnati Music Hall, Cincinnati, United States

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Ensemble

Program, About & Synopsis

Photos

Further reading

Performance Dates & Venues

Venues