Jackson Free Press

The Mississippi Symphony Orchestra hasn't performed Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem in more than 20 years. It's no surprise. The sprawling piece not only exceeds an hour, it also requires a great deal from those putting on the shows.

The Verdi dry spell ends Saturday, Nov. 16, when the MSO will perform the piece with the Millsaps College and University of Mississippi choirs, as well as internationally renowned soloists, soprano Othalie Graham, mezzo soprano Janara Kellerman, tenor John Pickle and baritone Mark Walters.

Crafton Beck, conductor for the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, said the timing couldn't have been more perfect—this year is the bicentennial of Verdi's birth.

The casual listener is familiar with Verdi's Requiem mostly from movie trailers, commercials and television shows, along with other famous classical pieces that have been beaten into the public conscience.

The piece had its start after the passing of Italian composer Gioachino Rossini. He originally planned to have a large requiem as collaboration between himself and other composers, but the plans ended falling through. When writer Alessandro Manzoni, whom Verdi greatly admired, passed away, Verdi decided to complete a requiem entirely his own in his honor. That piece became Messa da Requiem.

Beck regards this piece as an incredibly personal one, not only for himself, but for the performers and audience as well.

"He wrote it at exactly my age. It's amazing to think that someone could have written such a thing at my age," Beck says. "It is very meaningful. A piece like this is very personal. The irony of a requiem is that it is not so much about death as it is about life."

Baritone Mark Walters, who worked with MSO on last year's performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, also has a special relationship with Verdi. No one else wrote for baritones the way Verdi did, Walters says. In some ways, Verdi created a new voice type by pushing the baritone voice higher.

"With Verdi, the baritone gets some of the most interesting music," Walters says. "It's gratifying. It's a challenge."

It takes a great deal of resources and time to stage the piece, and a great deal of excitement is building around the concert. Requiem calls for a large orchestra, a chorus and four soloists who sing in an operatic style. But when the theme of the piece is that of life and death, shouldn't the accompaniment be just as grand?

The Ole Miss choir has been rehearsing since the beginning of this semester. The Millsaps choir rehearses three days each week to prepare for Verdi. Beck works with each group—the choir, the orchestra and the soloists—separately.

"It's like building something, a house," Beck says. "You build each part, and you put them together at the end. In this case, you put it together in two days with the pieces prefabricated."

For Beck, all the hard work pays off in the performance in front of an audience, which for events as big as Verdi's Requiem can be up to 1,500 people.

"We're all human beings. It is the experience of that one-hour-and-20-minute concert that ... in the reality of the performance, this will become something," Beck says. "We will all be in this room singing these words and hearing these words. That's kind of what it's all about. It's what I do in my life."

Mississippi Symphony Orchestra's Bravo II: Verdi's Requiem is at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 16 at Thalia Mara Hall (255 E. Pascagoula St., 601-960-1537). Tickets range from $30 in the lower balcony to $58 in the conductor's circle. Visit msorchestra.com for information and tickets.