FULL REQUIEM (Dvorak) Moscow 2025 Svetlana Lachina, Polina Sharovarova, Ilya Selivanov, Nikolay Didenko
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: REQUIEM
- Composer: Dvorak Antonin
- Libretto: traditional
- Venue & Opera Company: Zaryadye Hall, Moscow, Russia
- Recorded: February 6, 2025
- Type: Concert Live
- Singers: Svetlana Lachina, Polina Sharovarova, Ilya Selivanov, Nikolay Didenko
- Conductor: Alexey Rubin
- Orchestra: Russian National Orchestra
- Chorus: State Academic Choir of Russia named after A. A. Yurlov
- Stage Director:
- Costume Designer:
Information about the Recording
- Format: DVD
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: yessubs, rusubs
- Video Recording from: YouTube FULL VIDEO
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
Dvorak’s Requiem was first performed to the general public in 1891 in England, at the Birmingham Festival. After the triumphant premiere, the work was performed with enviable frequency at all leading venues in Europe and America.
There are several reasons for performing the work, and all of them are timed to coincide with rather important dates. Firstly, 135 years since the creation of the Requiem. Interestingly, the composition has a rather unusual motivation for writing. Janacek said that Dvorak turned to one genre or another due to some dissatisfaction with what had been created before him by other composers, as well as because of the desire to do something in this area himself. Thus, Dvorak “left the pages of Berlioz’s Requiem in irritation – and soon his Requiem appeared.”
Secondly, 135 years ago Dvorak travelled to Russia. And here it is important to remember the name of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who contributed to this. He was a great friend and admirer of the Czech composer’s talent. They met in Prague in 1888 at the National Theatre during an intermission of Verdi’s opera Othello. And after some time they even saw each other every day and listened to each other’s works during rehearsals! It was Tchaikovsky who managed to convince the directors of the Imperial Musical Society to invite Dvorak to Russia. There was quite a lot of trouble in implementing the proposal. The negotiations dragged on, primarily because of the language barrier: Dvorak wrote to Tchaikovsky in Czech, and Pyotr Ilyich then looked for translators to translate the letters.
Another important task of the concert is to give impetus to a historical revenge, a reboot of the stage destiny of this work on the Russian academic stage. It is impossible to compete in popularity with the opuses of Mozart and Verdi, but Dvorak is capable of taking an honorable place in the top five of the requiem ratings.
The severity and perfection of the monumental form of the whole do not at all hinder the deeply personal, lyrical character of the musical expression in individual sections. And the colorful pictorial and visual pictures, “drawn” by the magnificent Dvorak orchestra, are surprisingly organically combined with the tenderly heartfelt, confessional tone that prevails in the composition.