Dave Thompson brings us the story of the Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezin which will be performed in Bismark Oct. 20-21 at the Belle Mehus Auditorium. Plus, Dave Thompson with this week's news and Matt Olien reviews “She Came to Me.”
Defiant Requiem (transcript)
Main Street
The Bismarck Mandan Symphony Orchestra and singers from the Bismarck Mandan Civic Chorus, University of Mary and Bismarck State College will perform the story of the Verdi Requiem at the Terezin concentration camp with special audio and visual presentations concerning the Holocaust, on October 20th and 21st at the Belle Mehus Auditorium in Bismarck. News Director Dave Thompson speaks with Murry Sidlin of the Bismarck Symphony Orchestra and guest conductor Murray Sandlin. He begins by asking Maestro Sandlin how he came up with the defiant Requiem concept.
Murry Sidlin
Well, you know, it was a long time ago now, and I can just say that I tripped over the story, literally. I mean, I saw a pile of books in a used bookstore, and I pulled one out of the pile. You know how it is that you see these pyramids of books and you're sure that for two bucks you're going to find a first edition Shakespeare in there someplace? So I pulled this book out, and the title of the book was Music at Terezin. And I thought, Terezin, Terezin. I knew that it was in the former Czechoslovakia. I knew that I had heard of it, but I had no idea, first of all, that there was a concentration camp there, and I had no idea whether it was all Czechs or whether they were imported. So I stood on the street corner with this book, and I went through it and saw that it was a book just about people who were in turn there, and what musical contributions they made to the environment.
So already this is all fresh stuff. Now, I know that there was a musical environment in the concentration camp of Terezin. Things went on from there. I just began to find information. And it seemed to me that a lot of what went on there was in defiance of the Nazi objectives, which was simply eat what we give you. Work your ten hours a day and die. It got new people coming in. We don't need you anymore.
And their attitude was, whoa, let's see if we can't do something with this environment to stimulate ourselves and each other, to keep life going. And so the more I read about it and this is this is the Reader's Digest version that I'm giving you. The more I read about it, the more I realized that these people were lifting their fists to the Nazis and refusing to die, and were humane to each other, even though the environment in which they lived was one that was just overwhelmed with chaos and insanity.
Main Street
How long have you been actually doing the defiant Requiem then?
Murry Sidlin
Well, we started it in, I think the first performance was in, I guess, We've given over 50 performances of it now in various places around the world.
Main Street
So, Beverly, how did this come to Bismarck then?
Beverly Everett
Well, Maestro Sandlin was one of my mentors at the Aspen Music Festival. And I can remember you talking about this. Maybe you had read the book at that time and talking about this even back then. And so it seemed like something that was always on my radar. And I believe I watched the video from the performance in Portland, and you can't watch that and know that story and not be moved. I've also read that book, The Music at Terracing and and as a conductor, as a music director, we spend a lot of time thinking about what's going to impact our audience and talking about things like the power of music or the ability of music to reach into somebody's soul or into their heart. And I had never experienced.
Through the history of this or through the musical production of it, something so vividly that exemplified that. 1s And so I wanted to bring that to the audiences where I served. And so we did this in Bemidji, I think, about 12 years ago, and talked then about coming to Bismarck, and it just took a while to make that happen.
Main Street
Let me ask you, when you performed in Bemidji, what was the reaction?
Beverly Everett
We still have people talk about it. It was incredible. We had so we had at that time a gentleman who had served on our board, who himself was a Holocaust survivor, and he made that event into a family reunion, something that brought everyone together to talk about what had happened. We had another gentleman whose mother was a Holocaust survivor, who had never spoken of it until seeing the defiant Requiem.
Main Street
Let me ask maestro, why did you choose Verdi?
Murry Sidlin
There's a really quick and easy answer to that. To that I didn't choose it. The Requiem was the choice of music by the prisoners. Well, and actually, that's not true either. It was the conductor and it was not an automatic kind of let's all get together and do the Verdi Requiem.
Remember, in this concentration camp it was 99% Jew, Jewish and there were quite a number of very Orthodox rabbis in the camp who were dead set. Against what? What are you doing? This is a big Catholic work of the Catholic liturgy. And you're doing that here in this camp was all Jews.
And, you know, and what you're doing is you're you're giving us a Catholic service and pretending it's a concert. I mean, there are all kinds of things that created opposition. Shechter, the conductor, his perspective was different. He said many times, he said that, you know, the true meaning of any work of art was never limited to its original intent.
So therefore, yes, it may be connected to Catholic liturgy, but that's not the only way to look at it. He said. Look, I mean, think about the Pieta of Michelangelo. You mean to say Jews are not allowed to cry when they see something as beautiful as that, or that it's limited to Christians? You know, I mean, there's an absurdity to that. Well, there was an absurdity to so many things about about Terezin.
But that was the the issue was that he chose the Verdi Requiem because it was a work of great drama, of great power, of great dignity, of great spirituality, whether it's Catholic or not, Catholic, great spirituality. And the other thing is just it's just a downright wonderful, wonderful composition. I mean, if you if you think that the Messiah of Handel may be the most performed classical music composition ever composed, I got to think that the Verdi Requiem is second, third or fourth and there as well. It's just that sort of thing.
Main Street
I can say from experience that it's a beautiful work, but it is a challenging work. Some long nights working on the music. Beverley I'm sure you probably have felt that as well.
Beverly Everett
I have, you know, when we did this in Bemidji, we did what I think is considered the full version of this. So we had about a 200 voice choir and a 100 piece orchestra. And I, of course, rehearsed the orchestra before maestro sibling arrived. And in Bismarck, we're doing a different kind of version. It's a chamber version. So we have one violinist and one cellist and a wonderful pianist who has come in and then the chorus. So really, the burden of this has been on Dr. Porter for the preparation of the chorus for this particular performance.
Main Street
So give me a thumbnail about what people will see at this. I understand it's a multimedia respects.
Murry Sidlin
Sure, yes, we have a screen and on the screen will from time to time appear as an actual member of the Terezin Chorus. People who were there and sang in the choir, or in a couple cases they were in the audience. And so they have a direct connection. And we were fortunate enough to get some of these people on, on video. So we use their words, the profound, tragic vision that they have or had. Most of them have passed away now.
But but still, they were my teachers and they were the ones that told me what took place, why and how. I remember the first time I got a hold of one of the members of the choir, my name, Edgar Corazza, and I went to his home in Massachusetts, and he gave me an overview of what the rehearsals were like, and he put me on the phone to three other people who sang in the choir as well. And so it became more than obsession for me.
It became just something that was so magnetic. The story was incredible, the music was sensational, the place and the circumstances were impossible.
And yet they did it. They did it. The 16 performances, the last one of which was in front of a contingent of the of the Nazis, who who came at the request of the Red cross. The Red cross had a visit to to see that everything was on the up and up and everybody was being taken care of, and there was enough food and medication. Of course it was all lies. They were able to put that together to, you know, it was a sham and the Red cross was in on it at that particular time. So nevertheless, it was done and it was memorable. And I was very fortunate enough to stumble across the book. And that led me in a roundabout way to some of the people who actually were there. And they were my teachers, and that's how we were able to put together Defiant Requiem.
Main Street
How do you hope this relates to an audience in the 2000's?
Beverley Everett
One of the things that really impacts me, and it just blows me away, is that unfortunately, so many times in the last few years, and so the way conductors program, most of us program things a minimum of one year out, and usually it's a two year or in some cases, even multiple years of planning something and getting it, getting a season programmed. And so we will be doing a piece that, for instance, several years ago in Bemidji, we did a piece by Lucas Richman that was inspired by Leonard Bernstein's quote of let this be our reply to violence, to make music more delicately, more beautifully, more passionately than ever before.
And then the night before we performed that there was a terrible shooting in a synagogue in California. And last weekend we performed in Bemidji considering Matthew Shepard by Craig Johnson, eve of that concert, this horrible attack of of Hamas on on Israel. And so it's so important. I don't think there are more important messages we could be sharing with the world that not only is music beautiful and powerful and important and lifesaving and necessary, but it also it's messages of peace are what we need to hear, and we need to be reminded constantly that we don't need to repeat history in that way. And we've got to stop this with the way we treat people.
Murry Sidlin
I couldn't agree more. I mean, Beverly is an enormously sensitive conductor. She really stands by all that music can mean, and she's committed to raising the eyebrows of her audience. I mean, everything she does is. Have you thought of it this way? And that's the mission of all musicians. Especially conductors who have this privilege of walking onto stage and looking out at hundreds and hundreds of people and say to them in some way or another, have you thought of it this way? And I think that that's our mission. This is what we do.
Fortunately, there's a lot of great music that allows us to do that. Unfortunately, a lot of that great music is sponsored or presented on the basis of horrors that have occurred. It's no secret what we're living through right now. You know, I mean, I think it's rather ironic. You know, here we are about to present Defiant Requiem, which in effect tells the story of the Terezin concentration camp and the Jewish prisoners that were handcuffed to, how shall I say, stymied by the Nazis. So here we are at a time when in the Holy Land of all places. In the Holy Land of all places, that we have people who are now going through again.
You know this statement of we must kill the Jews. We must kill the Jews. That's that's what their objective seems to be. It's hard to swallow, and it's hard to realize that here we go again. How could it be? And now, in addition to reminding people of what was now, we have to realize that what is and we have to do it in the best way that we know how, the best way that Beverly can do it and I can do it is in music making. That's what we can say to our audience. Listen to this. Have you thought of this? Here we go again. This is not human, humane. This is not what we were born to do.
You know, I remember a time when I was in undergraduate school, the Peabody Conservatory of Music, many, many years ago, and a contingent of Soviet composers, actually Russian, but they were known as Soviet in those days. They visited the school and one of them was Dmitri Shostakovich the great, the great Russian composer. And he refused to stand up and say anything. His colleague Coveleski, he stood up and he talked to us, and he was like the sparkling uncle that we all wish that we had, and wonderful man and great personality.
And then the the person who was the head of the Soviet Board of Composition Calinokof, he stood up and talked about how great Russian music is and the culture and all that sort of thing. And then the head of the school said, Now I'm happy to present to you our most distinguished composer, perhaps the most famous living composer today, Mr. Shostakovich. And we 800 of us stood up and cheered. He was like Mickey Mantle had walked in or something like that, and we screamed and cheered and cheered, and he sat in his seat with his hands in his pocket and would not acknowledge the applause. Would not would not say a word.
It was about, oh, I don't know. 20 years later, I met his son. His son's a conductor. Maksim Shostakovich had the orchestra at the time in New Orleans, and we went to dinner and I told him this story and I said, why did your father not acknowledge the applause? He says, my father can't control himself. He said if he were to get started, he was going to say things that he was going to regret. And he says, and I and my mother were back in St. Petersburg, back in, and we were going to be the object of their wrath should he, you know, and I think to myself, My God, I wish we had known I wouldn't have harbored all that hostility toward him that I did all those years. Too bad that he had passed away. And I couldn't apologize for how I felt, and congratulate him on the nature of his music, which, if nothing else, was only dedicated to democratic ideals and freedom and so forth. He was the 20th century Beethoven when it came to that.
I'm sorry to take up so much time. This is what art is. Art brings us into a world that we didn't know existed, and it's up to us now to be sensitized and to pass that along and to just give it the best that we can.
And so defiant Requiem is the story of the Verdi Requiem at the Terezin concentration camp. 15 performances, 16 actually, and in spite of the Nazis, in spite of it, that the performers and the conductors, their their role in life became a mission of of sensitizing, we know that it didn't take hold. We know that most of them were were murdered, but at least to each other, at least to each other. They could maintain sensitivity, dignity, and the wisdom and intelligence of what life means and what can be.
So sitting before you right now are two people who really understand this.
Main Street
That was news director Dave Thompson with Beverley Everett of the Bismarck Symphony Orchestra and guest conductor Murry Sidlin, the Bismarck Symphony Orchestra and others will perform Defiant Requiem Verdi at Terezin, October 20th and 21st at the Belle Mehus Auditorium.
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