Past Event: Benjamin Britten War Requiem
Location: Woolsey Hall
500 College Street
New Haven, CT
Open to: General Public
Admission: Tickets/Registration
Description: Yale Camerata, Yale Glee Club, and Yale Symphony Orchestra will join with invited soloists, New Haven’s Elm City Girls Choir, and the Girls’ and Boys’ choirs of Trinity on the Green, to perform Benjamin Britten’s masterpiece.
Soloists: Katia Kim, Gene Stenger and Edmund Milly
Conductors: Jeffrey Douma, William Boughton.
Yale Camerata prepared by Felicia Barber.
About the War Requiem:
Two soldiers (tenor and baritone soloists) from opposing sides recount the terrors of war through the poetry of Wilfred Owen (British poet and soldier, killed in the last week of WWI) which are intertwined with the Latin Requiem Mass, whilst the ethereal sounds of the children’s choir embody the sound of innocence lost. In both performances the venues will be transformed through the visual realizations of Camilla Tassi.
Following in the operatic tradition of Verdi’s Requiem, Britten brings his operatic skills to realize the conflicts and futility of war through three separate forces—full orchestra, choir, and soprano in the Latin Requiem Mass; Chamber orchestra, tenor, and baritone in settings of Wilfred Owen’s war poems; and an unseen children’s choir that intones words to Paradise.
The War Requiem was created to consecrate the new Coventry Cathedral in 1962. The shell of the old cathedral, which was bombed in the WWII, still stands next to the new Cathedral as a reminder of the atrocities of war and in remembrance to all those that lost their lives. Sadly, the message of this masterwork is as resonant in today’s world as it was in 1962.
Contact: Jeff Hazewinkel jeff.hazewinkel@yale.edu