Music Review: Verdi Requiem, RLPO, Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral

Sep 29 2008 by Glyn Mon Hughes, liverpool Daily Post

Verdi's Requiem performed by the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra at the Metropolitan Cathedral _220

COME a performance of the Requiem by Verdi, there’s always the temptation to trot out the old cliché about it being his "best opera".

If anything, this weekend’s quite stunning performance by the RLPO with "reinforcements" from Hudd- ersfield and Leeds proved that this work really does have its roots planted well outside the confines of the opera house.

For this was a work of penitence, of soul searching and of making good with your Maker. Of course, there was drama – it would be hard to forget the shatteringly profound, almost terrifyingly hellish Dies Irae, whose intensity was concentrated each time the theme was recapitulated.

This cannot have been an easy performance for Vasily Petrenko, for he had to combine four choruses, all of whom have very different characteristics. It was particularly good to welcome the Huddersfield Choral Society back to Liverpool: their 1950s recordings with the RLPO are now audio legends.

But, time was that this was something of a battleforce chorus – the days before some of the smaller, specialist choirs showed choral music in a new light.

After a disappointing decade 30 years or so ago, Huddersfield is now one of Europe’s great choruses. Leeds Philharm- onic brought its refreshingly young sound along and the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral Cantata Choir – no mean force – added its weight.

And so, with the precision we’re used to with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir, testing times were here. But no-one should have feared. There was dynamic force for the big moments, but, in the hugely risky and complex double fugue at the Sanctus, this could have been a mere octet. And with the opening pianissimo – as well as the chanted Libera Me at the end of the piece – even a force this size showed, under Petrenko, that it could be sprightly and disciplined.

Soprano Anne Schwanewilms, no stranger to the operatic stage, used that dramatic edge. And she possessed that rare ability to make the music come out of her very body – it was not just a performance, it was one which combined both performance ability and spirit. A particularly powerful mezzo, Mariana Pentcheva, was especially moving when she sang in duet with the soprano – Recordare, in particular.

The stand-in tenor Peter Hoare and bass Mirco Palazzi – not a part which features massively in this work – brought gravitas to their various solo parts, though all four soloists were most impressive when singing in together: Domine Jesu Christi was almost naïve in its spine-tingling excellence.

I’ve heard this piece in venues worldwide by what have often been called the world’s best this or that. This Liverpool performance has got to be, for its sheer verve and dynamism as well as its spirituality, as good as it can get.