Messa da Requiem

Zubin Mehta has never ceased, through his career and greatly inspiring musical journey, to seek to reveal the greatness and depth of musical language while considering music as a message of peace and vector for essential human encounters.

“As with us all, he had lost his faith, but more than others, it was the regret of it that remained”. These few words from Arrigo Boito about Giuseppe Verdi testify to the complex relationships that the Maestro had with spirituality. He who had explored all human emotions and many of the injustices distilled by the world’s religions was also a great composer of sacred music. Indeed, it was the Quattro Pezzi Sacri that brought a close to the immense output of the man who reinvented Italian opera.

After the triumphant success of Aida, Verdi wished to crown and close his career with a Messa da Requiem in homage to the great Risorgimento actor and man with a passion for justice and humanity, Alessandro Manzoni. The gigantic work was first performed in Milan in 1874 on the day of the first anniversary of the poet’s death. The enthusiasm it aroused spread throughout the world and his Requiem became one of the most regularly performed in the world.

This “opera in an ecclesiastical dress”, as the conductor Hans von Bülow ironically called it, will have the great honour of welcoming the immense Zubin Mehta, one of the most prestigious conductors in the world, to our venue for this exceptional event.