When the Tucson Symphony Orchestra performed Verdi’s Requiem in 2013, it felt like one of those once in a lifetime experiences.
“You could see lightbulbs going off in everyone’s heads. It was a big ah ha moment,” said former TSO Music Director George Hanson, who conducted that concert as part of the inaugural Tucson Desert Song Festival. “It was the first time in anyone’s memory ... that you had four ... people whose voices could really fill the music hall.”
This weekend, one of those vocalists, bass Morris Robinson, will join Hanson’s replacement, TSO Music Director José Luis Gomez, and three other soloists for Verdi’s colossal oratorio. The concert on Friday, March 22, and Sunday, March 24, is a cornerstone of the 12th annual song festival.
In addition to the soloists, the performance will feature the full orchestra and nearly 100 choristers, led by TSO Chorus Director Marcela Molina.
“It’s a great work to bring back to the stage, especially with the chorus,” Gomez said.
The 2013 concert was the TSO’s first stab at the Requiem since Hanson led the ensemble and its then fledgling chorus in the work in 2004. That concert featured solid soloists, Hanson recalled, but they weren’t quite at the level of the Met or Chicago Lyric Opera like the four soloists at the 2013 concert.
That was what the late song festival co-founder and driving force Jack Forsythe had envisioned. Forsythe, who died in April 2020, wanted to give the orchestra and the festival’s other artistic partners including Arizona Opera and True Concord Voices & Orchestra the money to hire big-name vocalists that they would otherwise not be able to afford.
Robinson, making his third song festival appearance, joins soprano Katie van Kooten, mezzo-soprano Ronnita Miller and tenor Mario Chang for this weekend’s concerts.
“The Verdi Requiem is one of my favorite pieces. This is the one opera Verdi composed without a librettist,” he said earlier this week. “It’s very operatic in nature and it’s … an emotional journey.”
The Requiem is a mass for the dead, but Verdi added forgiveness, salvation and absolution as part of the journey. There are moments of soft and quiet interspersed with booming loud drama.
“It’s exciting. I love this piece,” Robinson said.
Gomez also compared Verdi’s Requiem with the 19th century Italian composer’s opera writing. Like his operas, Verdi tells a story, in this case one based on the Catholic funeral Mass; he composed it in 1874 in memory of Italian poet Alessandro Manzoni.
“He uses the same approach because it’s very operatic so it becomes a symphonic work and that is what attracts me so much,” Gomez said. “The fact that the soloists become part of the ensemble. You have them individually in some parts, but at some point you make them (part of) the ensemble.”
The TSO will perform the work at 7:30 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. Sunday at Linda Ronstadt Music Hall, 260 S. Church Ave. Tickets for the performance, which runs 90 minutes with no intermission, are $14 to $90 through tucsonsymphony.org.
