Requiem de Verdi - Festival de Rocamadour

The Symphony Orchestra of the Republican Guard is coming for two exceptional evenings to close the festival in the Alzou Valley. Conducted by Sébastien Billard, it will be accompanied on August 25 by the Spanish choir Orfeón Donostiarra for Verdi's Requiem. An evening that promises to be grandiose with more than 200 artists on stage. Vannina Santoni, Marie-Andrée Bouchard-Lesieur, Thomas Bettinger and Nicolas Cavallier will perform the solo parts. The work originates from a commission to several Italian composers to write a requiem mass in memory of Gioachino Rossini, who died on November 13, 1868, for which Verdi composed the thirteenth and last part, the Libera me. Since the Messa per Rossini was never performed, Verdi soon considered composing a complete Requiem from the Libera me, but the project only took shape with the death of Manzoni. Verdi offered to compose a mass in his honor for the city of Milan, hence the original title Manzoni's Requiem.