By Lyn Mills (Canberra Times)
The ACTEW Grand Gala featuring Verdi's Requiem was uplifting and beautiful and about as far as can be from the dirgelike music of our religious death rituals. I'd be happy to go out on this exquisite work, with combined choirs of Canberra Choral Society, Oriana Chorale, SCUNA (Australian National University Choral Society) the Llewellyn Choir, the Canberra Symphony Orchestra and conductor Nicholas Milton giving their all.
But perhaps it's best to stay with the here and now and indulge in some rapture for religious music written by a man renowned for his operas of passion and pain, who was apparently an atheist. And while Llewellyn Hall is no cathedral, it allowed for the hundreds in the choir and orchestra to pack the stage to the max and fill the hall with a memorable stirring of senses, besides plenty of spine shivering.
It could transmogrify into a sound and light show if we had an ancient ruin and some ghosts of yesteryear.
Meeting George Howell and Ian Anderson before the concert, there was some nostalgic chat as these 30-year veterans of choral singing were about to sit in judgement on the performance of friends. They've performed the Verdi Requiem three times, including a performance for the Llewellyn Hall opening, so there might have been a bit of singing along in the audience.
Over before 9pm and home to amaretti and vin santo with a toast to Guiseppe Verdi and the hundreds who made this a requiem we want to hear here and now.