Local orchestra, vocalists up to the challenges of Verdi's 'Mass for the Dead'

Southwest Washington Symphony, Vancouver Master Chorale give a thrilling performance of Italian composer's Requiem Mass at LCC's Rose Center

Talk about meeting a challenge.

The Cowlitz County-based Southwest Washington Symphony, the Vancouver Master Chorale and several vocal soloists tackled Giuseppe Verdi’s monumental Requiem Mass Saturday night at Lower Columbia College’s Rose Center.

It was a masterful, even thrilling performance. The near-capacity audience gave it resounding applause and numerous bravos, bravas and bravis, deservedly so.

There was a buzz in the hall both during intermission and afterward, as listeners sensed they’d been treated to something special, to something at least temporarily transformative.

Based on the Catholic “Mass for the Dead,” the nearly two-hour long masterpiece is an exploration of powerful emotions connected with death and its theological meaning. It is both terrifying and soothing, resigning and reverential, sweet and mysterious.

Verdi (1813-1901) was one of Italy’s most loved opera composers, the creator of Aida, Rigoletto and dozens of other operas still wildly popular today. And indeed, some early critics of the Requiem complained that it skirted the dramatic line between opera and more sober ecclesiastical music.

The great irony of this work is that Verdi himself was an indifferent believer, an agnostic at best. Besides Verdi’s innate gift for lyricism and drama, the emotional content of the work no doubt springs from the 1873 death of his close friend Alessandro Manzoni, a poet and novelist from the nationalistic “Risorgimento” period of Italian 19th-Century history.

“I would have knelt before him if it was possible to worship men,” Verdi is said to have remarked about Manzoni.

The writer’s death inspired Verdi to take up another, stillborn requiem that had been started by a group of composers, including Verdi, to commemorate the 1868 death of another Italian opera composer, Gioachino Rossini.

Verdi’s masterpiece debuted in May1874. It was an immediate success.

It contains seven traditional elements of a Latin Catholic funeral mass:

The Introit (entry) comprised of Rest in Peace, and Lord have Mercy; the eight part “Dies Irae” (Day of Judgment), which includes the Confutatis (When the Cursèd) and Lacrymosa (Day of Bitter Lamentation); a short offertory for solo quartet, Lord of Lords; Sanctus (Holy); Agnus Dei (Lamb of God); Lux Aeterna (Light Forever); and Libera Me (Lord, Deliver Me).

It takes an immense amount of stamina — both emotional and physical — to perform this work. The “Dies Irae” alone is 700 bars long, noted Robert Davis, the orchestra’s conductor and musical director.

The stage was packed with instrumentalists, about 80 choir members and six soloists, who walked on and off stage as their roles demanded. One of them included LCC music instructor Gina Challed, a soprano from Camas.

The performance never lagged but remained fresh and captivating throughout. The tempos were spot on, never too fast or too slow. There was good balance between the orchestra, and choir and the soloists. The handling of the some complex rhythms and many changes of mood and texture came off cleanly.

Davis let the music speak for itself: “The Dies Irae” was appropriately brutal. The opening ‘Requiem,” a hushed and tricky challenge for the chorus, was clean and magisterial. There was no excessive rubato (tempo adjustments). Phrasing and dynamics were in good taste and balance.

The soloists, all from Clark County, were Challed, soprano Alexis Balkowitsch, soprano Anneise Delcambre, mezzo-soprano Samantha Holm, tenor Ethan Reviere and bass Gennadiy Tsbikov.

Reviere, the tenor, especially, has a powerful, mellow and well-rounded voice.

Tsbikov, a native of Kazakhstan, impressed with his ability to cleanly finish off phasing at the bottom of the basso vocal range.

Balkowitsch sang with purity, tenderness and religious conviction, and she was never shrieky, even at the highest pitches.

In keeping with the Symphony’s now longstanding policy, the performance was free. In case you missed it, you can catch it at 3 p.m. today (Sunday Oct. 20) at Skyview High School, 1300 NW 139th St. in Vancouver. Admission to that performance is $30.

It’s well worth it.