A Collector's Verdi Requiem

Please join us for a celebration of a work sometimes described as “Verdi’s best opera,” his Requiem in Memory of Manzoni. Quite a discography has developed for this work, and fortunately it is also short enough (usually around 80 to 90 minutes) to be fully discussed and enjoyed in a single presentation.

Join us as we listen to the work, in the course of which we will hear from four different generations of performers, using recordings from throughout the past hundred years. The definitive interpretations of each section will be played, which will showcase some of the greatest operatic singers from the 78 rpm era to the glowing stars of today’s opera firmament.

Our presenter, Liz Hubbell, is a longtime member of the Vocal Record Collectors Society in New York. She and her husband, Geoffrey Riggs, run the website OperaCast.com. This will be Liz's debut program here in Boston for the New England Opera Club.

She has spent a lifetime amassing a comprehensive collection of Verdi Requiem recordings, both studio recordings and rare live performances. Acquired during nearly forty years of avid collecting, her vast library forms the basis of her affectionate tribute to one of the great vocal works of the Romantic Era.

So, if you want to know what this work can sound like, incorporating the very best readings of the past hundred years, here is your chance to find out! If this sounds like a crazy proposition, you are probably right; but, after all, a bit of insanity is a key ingredient in so much opera! So don’t miss this rare opportunity to hear a unique, "dream" Verdi Requiem.

The Library is fully handicap-accessible