Grigor Palikarov conducts Verdi’s Requiem at the Varna Opera House on the eve of Holy Week

On the eve of Holy Week, the Varna Opera performs Verdi’s emblematic work “Requiem” with soloists Joana Zhelezcheva, Mihaela Berova, Deyan Vachkov and Valery Georgiev, as well as with the participation of the “Sea Sounds” choir, choirs and the opera theater symphony orchestra, conducted by maestro Grigor Palikarov. This is reported by the cultural institution. The concert is tonight.
The Requiem has seven movements composed for four soloists, choir and orchestra. The impressive second movement, Dies Irae, is divided into nine episodes and is among the most dramatic excerpts in the world’s treasury of choral music. It is believed to depict the Last Judgment.
According to the conductor, the presence of the Requiem genre on the eve of the Easter holidays is already a kind of tradition in Bulgaria. He recalls that Verdi created his in 1868, after the death of Gioachino Rossini. He suggested to a group of Italian composers that they write together a great mourning mass in his memory. The idea was carried out, but it did not receive the desired response, and therefore a few years later Verdi himself composed his magnum opus on another occasion, and it became a masterpiece, which is a kind of milestone for almost every conductor at some stage of his creative path. says Palikarov. This year marks the 150th anniversary of the work’s premiere, which was the reason he proposed the work for this year’s Easter Festival of the Varna Opera.
According to the conductor, Verdi has been accused quite unfairly of the overly operatic sound of his Funeral Mass, for he was nevertheless a composer who knew how to handle voices, whether solo or choral, in a magnificent way. For the performance today, two people are needed, because everywhere in Bulgaria the ensembles are small and it is difficult to achieve the large-scale sound that the author was looking for with only the forces of one choir, emphasizes Palikarov.
Verdi, who has proven his high mastery in the overall construction of his works, in his Requiem in less than an hour and a half takes us from angry protest, deep suffering, hope for freedom and fear of the Last Judgment to worshiping the power of the human spirit and pacification, he says and adds that the difficulty for the conductor consists precisely in the dramatic construction of the work and subordinating the performance to the unified idea.