The Hvorostovsky Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre will hold the premiere of a new version of Requiem by Giuseppe Verdi on January 27, 2020 - the day of the lifting of the Siege of Leningrad and the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Requiem appeared as a Catholic funeral mass, it gradually became secular: a high genre of concert sacred music, a mourning oratorio. This work for soloists, choir and orchestra will be performed as close as possible to Russian-speaking spectators. The Latin text is translated into Russian. Mournful music with exalted lyrics will be provided with powerful influential accompaniment - documentary and feature videos.

“I am sure that the sacred, universal meaning of the work in the Russian translation should be closer and more understandable to a wide range of listeners. While working on the translation, we found a lot of semantic and thematic coincidences with the tragic events in the 20th-century history of Russia,” explained the inventor of the idea of this production, executive secretary of the Russian organizational committee Victory, Sergei Novikov, “There was an effect that Verdi wrote it about us: the horror of the siege and the happiness of Leningrad residents when the siege’s ring was broken, were reflected in this music. Such an effect is worth a lot, and spectators who have experienced these feelings will retain them for a long time.

One of the most respected and widely known Soviet and Russian conductors of our time Pavel Kogan was invited as music director and conductor of Requiem. In 2011 the maestro was included in the list of 10 greatest conductors of the XX century compiled by the British television channel Classical TV. Pavel Leonidovich Kogan is Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Moscow State Academic Symphony Orchestra.

So to say, in tune with the Krasnoyarsk Theatre, the performance of Requiem by Giuseppe Verdi will honour the victims of the Holocaust at the Moscow Helikon-Opera Theatre. This term refers to the barbaric policy of Nazi Germany of the prosecution and extermination of Jews in 1933-1945. On January 27, 1945, the Soviet army liberated the largest Nazi extermination camp Auschwitz.

According to the production directors, the fusion of music, vocals, textual and visual content will make Verdi's Requiem a powerful tool for patriotic education.