Requiem Mass

With Donizetti’s Requiem Mass, the annual event on September 5th that pays tribute to Pavarotti’s death with a grand symphonic opera concert is reaffirmed. Following performances of Verdi’s Requiem, Rossini’s Stabat Mater, and Leoncavallo’s Requiem heard last year, Modena City of Belcanto in 2020 offers another immortal page of sacred repertoire. In line with the spirit of the initiative, the concert produced by the Fondazione Teatro Comunale di Modena also gathers the fruits of the musical legacy that Modenese schools have passed on to young singers, often accompanying them to the international stage. An example is the presence of Cristina Barbieri, a Modenese soprano, student of Arrigo Pola, who perfected her skills with Leone Magiera, Raina Kabaivanska, and Mirella Freni, and was awarded by Pavarotti as the winner of the 4th “Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competition” in Philadelphia. Among the solo voices of the Requiem, besides bass Luca Tittoto, we find tenor Matteo De Sole, a student of Raina Kabaivanska at Vecchi-Tonelli, mezzo-soprano Nana Dzidziguri, and bass Francesco Milanese, both students of Mirella Freni’s courses.

Composed in 1835 to commemorate the death of Vincenzo Bellini, Donizetti’s Requiem was rarely performed before the 1980s. Luciano Pavarotti interpreted it in its first world recording on February 22, 1979, at the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona. The work, representing the first performance for the Teatro Comunale di Modena after months of closure due to the health emergency, was performed at the Piazzale del Cimitero Monumentale in Bergamo on June 28, 2020, to commemorate the victims of the coronavirus pandemic.