The Philharmonic Chorus, shown during a past performance, will be joined Saturday by the Northern Kentucky Community Chorus in a multimedia concert drama, “Defiant Requiem: Verdi in Terezin.”
Photo provided
On his worst days, Isaac Selya finds renewed gratitude for his life — all within seconds when he considers the struggles, courage and resilience of World War II Jewish prisoners at the Nazi prison camp in Terezin near Prague in today’s Czech Republic.
In an environment of little food, no medical care, disease, infestation, and fear for their lives, professional conductor Rafael Schachter and other Jews formed a chorus, memorized Giuseppe Verdi’s complex, 85-minute Requiem from a smuggled, solitary score, and presented multiple performances of the Latin work, accompanied only by piano, to their Nazi captors, other prisoners and even the Red Cross.
The ghetto and camp’s detainees included scholars, philosophers, scientists, visual artists, musicians and more.
“I’ve got multiple copies of this music just in my house,” said Selya, music director of the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic. “Despite everything they went through (as prisoners), they found the inspiration to do it.
“So whenever anything is hard … I realize that I am spoiled. I have a nice, warm house, I have enough to eat, I’m not battling an infection. I remember that my life is easy, and I’m going to be fine.”
Selya, who is Jewish, will lead the Philharmonic, the Philharmonic Chorus and the Northern Kentucky Community Chorus in what he is calling an uplifting multimedia concert-drama “Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezin” at 3 p.m. March 23 at Judson Erne Auditorium, 1400 25th St. in Columbus. Philharmonic Choral Director Caio Guimaraes Ferreira Lopes will direct the combined choral singers.
The concert will open with a montage of powerful interview video clips of Terezin chorus survivors such as Edgar Krasa.
“Not only was this a period of forgetting your current situation,” says Krasa in one clip, “it was a strengthening of the resistance of what was imposed on us.”
The performance will include segments of the Nazi propaganda film made at Terezin in 1944, “and actors to relay the story of how and why these Jewish prisoners, who faced death every day, chose to learn and perform music from a Latin, Catholic Mass during their darkest hours,” according to the Philharmonic website at thecip.org.
One of the translated-to-English lines of the composition is among those that gave the vocalists some measure of strength and hope, according to their relatives: “Whatever is hidden shall become evident and nothing shall remain unavenged.”
Philharmonic Chorus member Lexi Schneider already can feel a rising emotion about the choral work, video segments and more.
“For me personally, music always just takes me over emotionally,” Schneider said. “With this, even in rehearsals, I’ve already been getting goose bumps and getting teary-eyed. Along with the story, I really think that this concert is really going to become a wow moment for all the audience and for everyone involved.”
Selya understands.
“The Verdi Requiem even without any other context is still a very powerful piece of music,” Selya said of the work that the composer wrote for a friend who had died. “It was meant to be a reflection on life’s milestones. “But the full contextualization to be presented here is a reminder that the arts have a way of bringing people together to find a way to triumph over bigotry and what is tearing us apart.”
About the concert
Who: The Columbus Indiana Philharmonic, the Philharmonic Chorus, and the Northern Kentucky Community Chorus in a multimedia concert drama, “Defiant Requiem: Verdi in Terezin.”
When: 3 p.m. Saturday, March 23.
Where: Judson Erne Auditorium, 1400 25th St. in Columbus.
Tickets: thecip.org.
