As well, I have sung the Verdi Requiem three times: the first in Central Park, and then twice more in Carnegie Hall, all with Vincent La Selva. In fact, I still have the program from that first appearance of 40 years ago, and Isola Jones, who had just begun her career at the MET, was our mezzo-soprano for the first evening. Also, Tania Leon, the well-known contemporary composer, was credited in the program for having prepared the chorus. I followed the proceedings on television with my score.
The sound on the broadcast was inexplicably interrupted at the very end when our local station, WNET, suddenly cut in with announcements about coming events on Great Performances, interrupting a deeply emotional moment for our world-wide audience, just as Ailyn Perez was singing her final, gentle "Libera me" (I have friends in Philadelphia whose TV suddenly went dark for about 25 seconds), then an image of conductor Yannick Nezet-Seguin's somber visage returned as he was silently waiting for a long stretch to turn and allow thunderous applause to fill the auditorium as the emotional audience rose to give a standing ovation.
All that said, the many shots of the 9/11 Memorial interspersed with the performance were also incredibly moving.
Unfortunately, the sound quality was rather shallow and compressed, as I suppose it had to be to fit the requirements (or should I say limitations) of stereo broadcasting. It's quite impossible to capture such an experience even with today's digital technology, and I'm sure the MET team did their best.
Nezet-Seguin did prepare his singers to sing for the microphones, however, rather than for the house. All four of the soloists were coached within an inch of their lives (Ailyn Perez, soprano, Michelle De Young, mezzo-soprano, Matthew Polenzani, tenor, and Eric Owens, bass), and they all observed Verdi's dynamics and tone quality indications in the score perfectly well. I hesitate to say though whether their softer singing could be heard in the house, as much of what the men did was very near to falsetto and had no core. (I do wish Nezet-Seguin would take the time to study a bit of vocal technique and style from recordings of earlier generations of singers and vocal technicians.) De Young took a while to warm up, as her vibrato on high notes in the beginning minutes was a bit slow, and her tone was not as fresh as the other three. Perez completely aced the high Bb pianissimo, and of course her later high C was glorious after more than an hour of singing.
Nezet-Seguin had a fine sense of tempo throughout, with only two exceptions, those being the traditional slow-down for the basses in the chorus in the "Dies Irae" section. My score is marked "stent. un poco," both times this happens, first in the "Dies Irae" and at the repeat of the same figure for the basses in the "Libera Me." When Toscanini discussed this passage with Verdi, Toscanini made clear to the composer that he wished to slow down just a bit for the basses in the chorus so they could clearly deliver the text for just a few bars, in spite of Verdi not indicating anything in his autograph score. Verdi was pleased with the Maestro's idea, and said so, approving of the decision, but was concerned with marking anything in the score, as this might signal too much of a ritenuto to future generations of conductors. Later editions have indeed added the notation I quoted above. Nezet-Seguin, unfortunately, ignored the "un poco" marked and put in a drastic slowing that started about 6 bars too early. Perhaps he never studied Toscanini's 1939 performance with the BBC, or perhaps Reiner's excellent 1959 recording with Zinka Milanov. Verdi only wanted a barely perceptible effect in both passages, and I must say that Nezet-Seguin did manage thing quite a bit better the second time through.
Needless to say, the MET chorus sang gloriously throughout.
Lest I be accused of over-emphasizing these minor flaws, let me hasten to clarify that in spite of my nit-picking, this was an incredibly moving production/performance, and it should be issued on DVD to be made available world-wide as an historical document of a deeply emotional event.
Misty Copeland, lead dancer from the American Ballet, which performs at the MET when the opera season is not happening, was an elegant host who, like many Americans, struggled to pronounce Ailyn Perez's last name, which has the accent on the first syllable, even though Americans are used to saying PerEZ. It's not, it's PERez. Oh well.
So, not a perfect evening, but still an historical broadcast filled with meaning and deep emotion.
Never forget.
