It is the last disc of the collection, but I am reviewing it here in its chronological order. This performance of the Verdi’s mass is included as part Parma’s Tutto Verdi series. Zinka’s dive has erased all other memories of that day. This performance turned out to be Maestro Walter’s last at the Met. She turned out to be in less than ideal voice and did an operatic swoon after the ‘Dies Irae’. Zinka Milanov was in both halves of the bill. The “Convent Scene” is really set in a monastery, but that’s how the Met describes it. Bruno Walter conducted the “Convent Scene” followed by the Verdi Requiem. I’ve heard more live performances of the mass than I can recall. As is true for the rest of Verdi’s work, it is Shakespearean in its dimensions and awareness of humanities hopes and deepest fears. It is a mass not for the dead, but for the living. The 90+ minute mass, while liturgically correct, is too long to be part of almost any Catholic religious service, so it lives on in the concert hall and opera house where Verdi always always intended to be done. Verdi being the most practical of great composers, then took it on tour and made a lot of money from it. First performed in the church of San Marco, it was repeated a few days later at La Scala. Verdi’s towering Requiem Mass was written to mark the first anniversary of the death of Alessandro Manzoni (1785-1873) who was one of Verdi’s two cultural heroes of 19th century Italian art the other was Rossini.
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