GATTI TO REMEMBER THE BOMBING OF DRESDEN 80 YEARS AGO WITH VERDI’S REQUIEM

On 12 and 13 February at the Semperoper, in the capital of Saxony, with Eleonora Buratto, Szilvia Vörös, Francesco Meli, Michele Pertusi, and the Sächsischer Staatsopernchor Dresden

The one that on 13 and 14 February 1945 razed to the ground the greater part of the city of Dresden was one of the most destructive bombings of World War II. 1,500 tons of explosive bombs and 1,200 tons of firebombs were dropped by more than 800 British airplanes, later joined by America’s aircrafts B-17, spreading death and terror with the precise intent to completely destroy the city. The greater part of the historic center was razed to the ground by an enormous fire that raised the air temperature by hundreds of degrees Celsius. American writer Kurt Vonnegut spoke about it in his celebrated book Slaughterhouse-Five.

Eighty years after those dramatic events, the Staatskapelle of Saxony’s capital – one of the oldest and most prestigious orchestras worldwide, created in 1548 – and its Principal Conductor Daniele Gatti, will be remembering them with a concert symbolically featuring Giuseppe Verdi’s Messa da Requiem. The concert is scheduled for Wednesday 12 February and Thursday 13 February at 7pm at the Semperoper. The theater, itself hit by the bombing, will also be hosting an exhibition commemorating both the theater’s bombing and its reconstruction, completed forty years ago in 1985.

«On 13 February 2005 I was invited by Dresden’s Sächsische Staatskapelle to honor the same anniversary» – says Daniele Gatti – «I remember I then suggested Verdi’s Requiem. Twenty years later, as its Principal Conductor, I thought it would be twice as significant to present the same work».

Daniele Gatti has chosen to perform the masterpiece that Giuseppe Verdi had already imagined in 1868 as a collective work, then abandoned, to commemorate Gioachino Rossini. The death of Alessandro Manzoni in 1873 affected him so profoundly as to motivate him to resume the work and dedicate it to an artist he venerated like a saint. Conducted for the first time by Verdi himself on 22 May 1874 in Saint Mark’s Basilica in Milan, the Requiem is imbued with a deep dramatic energy that reflects the composer’s theatrical works: a profound meditation on the mystery of death, that despite rebellion against divine will, offers dignity and consolation to humankind.

The musicians involved are soprano Eleonora Buratto, mezzo, Szilvia Vörös, tenor Francesco Meli, bass Michele Pertusi, with by the Sächsischer Staatsopernchor Dresden.

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