VERDI'S REQUIEM

We had an amazing opportunity on Tuesday night to attend a performance by Morgen's choir (the Paris Choral Society) at Eglise St. Germain De Pres. The Choral Society is a group of almost one hundred volunteer singers who have been performing for the Paris community under the direction of Edward Tipton since 1994. The PCS was also joined by La Coeur des Nouvelles Voix (a choral group from St. Petersburg, Russia).

The performance we attended was at the beautiful Eglise St. Germain de Pres. The Abbey was founded in the 6th century and became one of the richest in France. Over the year, the church has been subjected to explosions, fire, and pillaging because it was built outside of medieval Paris and was responsible for it's own defence. For this reason, the church was surrounded by a wall, a moat, and three towers (only one still stands today). Although the outside of the church is Romanesque, the inside is full of 19th century paintings and gorgeous stained glass.




The church was the perfect setting for a performance of Verdi's Requiem. For those of you unfamiliar with Guiseppe Verdi's work, he was a very influential Italian opera composer in the 19th century. My knowlege of italian opera is very limited, to say the least but after doing some digging, I believe that it was first performed in 1874 in honor of the death of Alessandro Manzoni (a famous Italian writer who Verdi admired). Having never attended any sort of opera, we were blown away by not only the amazing soprano lead but how the leads, chorus, and orchestra melted together to give an amazing performance. It is really hard to describe but if you ever get a chance to see an opera, we would definitely suggest you should go. Check out the music player and scan through for two song from the Requiem. It's nothing like seeing it in a beautiful, old abbey in Paris but you will get the idea!

Special thanks to Morgen for inviting us, we had a lovely time! You can check out more about the Paris Choral Society at http://www.parischoralsociety.org/index.php and you should also check out Morgen's blog Spectatrix- the passionate introvert at http://spectatrix.com/