Messa da Requiem online programme

Cast sheet Saturday 25 February 2023

Please note that casting is subject to change right up to the performance.

Erica Horwoord, Yuanyuan Zhang, Riho Sakamoto, Floor Eimers

Emma Mardegan, Chloë Réveillon, Salome Leverashvili, Alexandria Marx, Kira Hilli, Inés Marroquín, Mila Nicolussi Caviglia, Sebia Plantefève-Castryck, Luiza Bertho, Hannah de Klein, Khayla Fitzpatrick, Wendeline Wijkstra, Antonina Tchirpanlieva, Yvonne Slingerland

Jared Wright, James Stout, Jakob Feyferlik

Martin ten Kortenaar, Giovanni Princic, Timothy van Poucke, Daniel Montero Real, Edo Wijnen, Dustin True, Dingkai Bai, Daniel Robert Silva, Davi Ramos, Sem Sjouke, Conor Walmsley, Bela Erlandson, Rafael Valdez, Leo Hepler, Sander Baaij

In 2013, when Christian Spuck was asked to provide a quote about the music of Giuseppe Verdi for the magazine of Opernhaus Zürich, he could never have imagined the far-reaching consequences of his statement. His answer was that it might be interesting to choreograph a work to Verdi’s music someday. And the world premiere of his production of Messa da Requiem took place three years later.

Spuck says, “During the creative process, I continually wondered what I’d embarked on. How could I make something to fit music that’s already so beautiful and powerful on its own that actually it needs no staging whatsoever? Messa da Requiem was not created as an opera or ballet, so it was completely up to us to decide what we should do with it.”

Emotional impact

Such great freedom in creating a new production goes hand in hand with making fundamental decisions. “For a work like this, you can go in two directions: you can make something ‘to’ the music – a story with characters – or you can use abstract images to create a staging that helps the audience understand the music better.” Spuck opted for the latter, resulting in a Gesamtkunstwerk for a hundred chorus members, four soloist singers and thirty-seven dancers, which emphasises and reinforces the emotional impact of the composition. “I think that nearly everyone who listens to Messa da Requiem feels this emotional impact. The music moves you to the depths of your soul. When I first came into contact with the piece myself – I was sixteen and heard it on the radio – I was completely overwhelmed and recorded it on an old cassette recorder, so that I could listen to it over and over again. Though I didn’t understand the words, I had a strong feeling the music was trying to tell me something.”

Hellish threats to comforting music

For Spuck, it was therefore important that his production of Messa da Requiem revolved around the music. “This production really takes the composition as its starting point, interpreting it in movement and sixteen short scenes on stage – as respectfully as possible. I hope that the staging brings the audience even closer to the music and that even people who know the work inside out can gain new insights into it.” The original text of the Requiem play a less important role in this. “Messa da Requiem was originally a Catholic Mass, and the words are pretty cruel and not very human-friendly, with threats about the hell that awaits people after death. But for me, that’s not what the work is about. Verdi himself was critical about religion, and in my view the music he wrote is actually very human. The composition aims to convey emotions like anger, sorrow (you can practically hear the tears falling in the ‘Lacrimosa’) and despair, but at the same time it offers protection and comfort. The music is about us as people, and about what we feel when we’re confronted with death: the most extreme emotion you can experience as a human being.”

The emotional and comforting character of the composition is reflected in the choreography Spuck created to the Requiem. “All the emotions of the music are put into an abstract choreographic language, but are still clearly recognisable. For instance, many movements involve holding and embracing one another, or fighting against pain.”

One world

Whereas co-productions between dance and opera often result in the two art forms being separated on stage, Spuck wants to present all the artists in Messa da Requiem as one group. So he places the singers and dancers together on stage, whereby the chorus is active in a very physical way as well as vocally, often interacting with the dancers. “The singers and dancers form one society. They are all human beings who are dealing with a moment of loss. It’s important they don’t play a role or try to convey an exaggerated emotion, but just be themselves. For opera singers, in particular, this can be challenging, as they are often used to portraying a character. I always tell them they shouldn’t try to create something to the music, but rather present the music as if it were their own composition.”

Bringing together companies

In his Messa da Requiem, Spuck not only brings together the art forms of opera and ballet, but also the companies who practice these art forms. “Normally speaking, opera and ballet companies work more or less in parallel, but in Messa da Requiem, they meet one another. In Zurich, that was a very special experience at the time. When the dancers heard the chorus sing for the first time, they shed tears of emotion. And vice versa, the chorus members took virtually no breaks during rehearsals, as they wanted to keep watching how the dancers rehearsed. One of the nicest things about it was that the singers and dancers really got to know each other, which has led to some lasting friendships.”

At Dutch National Opera & Ballet – where Messa da Requiem is being performed for the first time outside Opernhaus Zürich – Spuck hopes to achieve the same result. “Up to now, the artists and the members of the artistic team are very enthusiastic, so I’m really looking forward to seeing Messa da Requiem in Amsterdam.” However, this does not mean that the production of Messa da Requiem in Dutch National Opera & Ballet will be a direct copy of the original Zurich production. “After all, the work will be performed here by very different singers and dancers, so small changes have to be made in order to better showcase the artists of Dutch National Opera & Ballet. Amsterdam will really get its own version of Messa da Requiem.”

Text: Rosalie Overing
Translation: Susan Pond

The South Korean conductor Eun Sun Kim is famous for the expressive power she gives every note in the score on her stand. Indeed, it is no surprise that the New York Times has hailed her as a rising star of classical music. She has a great affinity with the work of Giuseppe Verdi. In this production of his Requiem, she seeks to convey the human drama.

Verdi has a special place in Eun Sun Kim’s career. She has performed many of his works multiple times and always seeks to do justice to the beauty and power of his compositions. As she puts it, she always falls a bit more in love with each Verdi composition she studies. “His music is invariably inextricably linked with the drama of his operas. That always stimulates and fascinates me whenever I start studying a Verdi score. It reminds me of the depth of his genius and his mastery of the craft, which I recognise in particular in the details and nuances. It might be the pause that he inserts very precisely between certain notes, or his reason for writing that particular chord under the melody line that the soprano has in a particular bar. He did all this because he wanted to convey that sense of human drama.”

Quest for hidden treasures

For Kim, conducting Verdi is a tireless quest for hidden treasures. “To understand everything the composer is saying, you need to be willing and able to dig deep into the material. That’s why I study the musical score for months before I enter the rehearsal room. I also research the composer’s life thoroughly and the situation they were in when they composed the work. I always do this in the composer’s own native language. This approach lets me immerse myself in the sounds and rhythms of their world. I get closer to the deeper layers of the composition and can then do justice to the music.”

The focus for Kim is not on a historically accurate performance of Verdi’s music. “I see a musical score as a letter across time. Of course, I follow Verdi’s indications in the score, but in the end, music is the art of The Moment. As a conductor, I believe classical music should evolve so that it continues to resonate with contemporary audiences. I may be giving a voice to masterpieces that can be centuries’ old, but it is still my duty to do so from a modern-day perspective and in my own distinctive way.”

The art of making music together

Conducting for Kim is the art of ‘creating something together’. After all, she can’t make music without the other musicians. While the orchestra members play their own individual instruments, for her they are the instrument. “I can only tell this story through the singers and the orchestra. As the conductor I’m the person projecting an artistic vision, but ultimately they are the ones who create the sound. So it is mainly my task to encourage their creativity.”

When Kim talks about making music, she doesn’t use the ‘I’ form; she prefers to talk about a ‘we’. This way of thinking has its roots in her Korean upbringing. “In my culture, we think in terms of ‘we’ rather than ‘I’, and our language reflects that. This is why conducting for me is above all about the interaction between people. For me, the constant quest for a collective sense of unity in the music we’re making embodies the beauty of the profession.”

Dynamics and contrasts

According to Kim, the essence of Verdi's Requiem is narrating a story. “When you study the score, you see at once that the music is one big dramatic story. You can tell that from the phrasing of his enthralling melodies, the dramatic rhythms and the dynamic contrasts. Whenever I have Verdi’s Messa da Requiem in front of me, I hone in on those dynamic details to get them as precise as possible. For example, if we examine the opening to Verdi’s Requiem, we see he has chosen to start as quietly as possible. We hear the strings, but their sound is muted. Then the lower voices in the chorus sing the first two words, and Verdi instructs them to sing sotto voce, at a whisper. The higher voices come in next. They sing the same words to the same notes, again at a whisper. When all the voices then sing ‘requiem aeternam’ in unison, Verdi repeats the instruction sotto voce in the score to emphasise just how important this is. But even that isn’t quiet enough for the composer, because he then cuts the chorus back to just four soprano voices singing the words ‘dona eis domine’. Their singing almost sounds like a sob, with pauses between each word and descending notes. The strings in the orchestra accompany these voices with long lyrical lines. At one point, the orchestra stops playing altogether, leaving the voices alone to make you hear the tragedy.”

The contrast with the next part of the requiem could hardly be greater. “The entire orchestra comes thundering in, fortissimo, trumpeting the threat of the Day of Judgement in the ‘Dies irae’. Once again, the lower voices open the dialogue with the musicians and are soon joined by the higher voices. The sobs of the ‘Introitus’ have now intensified and turned into a scream.”

In the end, it is all about hope

In his staged version of Verdi’s Requiem, the choreographer and director Christian Spuck focuses on the universal emotions surrounding the fragility of our mortal lives and the hope that lives in all of us. “I find Spuck’s staging a deeply moving interpretation and an exceptional visualisation of the human drama encapsulated in Verdi’s score. To my mind, Spuck genuinely does justice to the genius of this great composer because he has put the music at the heart of his production. The dancers’ body language is deeply rooted in the music, creating a perfect symbiosis between dance and music. I also value the fact that his interpretation centres on humans driven by the transformative power of hope. That transformative power is something I see in music as an art form per se. Because once this ephemeral art of The Moment has vanished, that power continues to resonate in your body and your soul one way or another. I aim to give each member of the audience precisely that enriching experience.”

Text: Naomi Teekens
Translation: Clare Wilkinson