Britten's War Requiem

Asher Fisch
Principal Conductor & Artistic Advisor

A renowned conductor in both the operatic and symphonic worlds, Asher Fisch is especially celebrated for his interpretative command of core German and Italian repertoire of the Romantic and post-Romantic era. He conducts a wide variety of repertoire from Gluck to contemporary works by living composers. Since 2014, Asher Fisch has been the Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra (WASO). His former posts include Principal Guest Conductor of the Seattle Opera (2007- 2013), Music Director of the New Israeli Opera (1998-2008), and Music Director of the Wiener Volksoper (1995-2000).

Born in Israel, Fisch began his conducting career as Daniel Barenboim’s assistant and kappellmeister at the Berlin Staatsoper. He has built his versatile repertoire at the major opera houses such as the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, and Semperoper Dresden. Fisch has conducted at leading American symphony orchestras including those of Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, and Philadelphia. In Europe he has appeared with the Berlin Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and the Orchestre National de France, among others.

Highlights of Asher Fisch’s 2021-22 season include Otello and Der Rosenkavalier at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Adriana Lecouvreur at the Vienna State Opera, a gala concert at the Hungarian National Opera with Kristine Opolais, as well as concerts with the Colorado Symphony, Naples Philharmonic, and New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Fisch’s 2020-21 season featured guest engagements with the Detroit Symphony, Utah Symphony, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Dusseldorfer Symphoniker, and a farewell concert at the Bayerische Staatsoper for long-time director Nikolaus Bachler. Other recent seasons included concert and opera engagements with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood, Cleveland Orchestra at the Blossom Festival, Sydney Symphony, Teatro Massimo Orchestra in Palermo, Carmen, Die Zauberflöte, and Parsifal at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Ariadne auf Naxos with the Bayerische Staatsoper at the Hong Kong Arts Festival, Tannhäuser at the Tokyo National Theater, and Pagliacci and Schitz at the Israeli Opera.

Asher Fisch’s recent recordings with WASO include Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde in 2018, which won Limelight Magazine’s Opera Recording of the Year in 2019, Bruckner’s Symphony No.8 and tenor Stuart Skelton’s first solo album Shining Knight, all of which were released on ABC Classics. Fisch’s recording of Ravel’s L’heure espagnole with the Munich Radio Orchestra won Limelight Magazine’s Opera Recording of the Year in 2017. In 2015, he recorded the complete Brahms symphonies with WASO, released on ABC Classics to great acclaim. His recording of Wagner’s Ring Cycle with the Seattle Opera was released on the Avie label in 2014. His first Ring Cycle recording, of the Helpmann award-winning State Opera of South Australia production, garnered praise and awards including the Prix Lauritz Melchior and Académie du disque lyrique Paris. Fisch is also an accomplished pianist and has recorded a solo disc of Wagner piano transcriptions for the Melba label.

Asher Fisch appears courtesy of Wesfarmers Arts.

Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM)

The Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) is dedicated to the artistic and professional development of the most exceptional young musicians from Australia and New Zealand. It is a place in which musicians fulfil their potential as music leaders, distinguished by their skill, imagination and courage, and by their determined contribution to a vibrant music culture. With an outstanding track record of success, ANAM alumni regularly receive major national and international awards, and are currently working in orchestras and chamber ensembles around the world, performing as soloists, and contributing to educating the next generation of musicians.

Image credit: Laura Manariti

Elena Perroni
Soprano

Praised for her “velvet soprano voice” (Philadelphia Inquirer), Elena Perroni has gained recognition on the international stage. Hailing from Western Australia, this season Perroni made her mainstage Carnegie Hall Debut as the soprano soloist in Schubert’s Mass in G Major as well as her role debut as Iolanta (Iolanta)
at the West Australian Opera. Elena has made regular appearances with the Philadelphia Orchestra in title roles such as Rusalka (Rusalka, Dvorak), Tatyana, (Eugene Onegin, Tchaikovsky) and in Berlioz's Les Nuits d'ete. Elena made her opera debut with Opera Philadelphia in Charlie Parker's Yardbird (Schnyder). As Doris Parker, she performed in the first opera to be performed at the legendary Apollo Theatre in New York City before reprising the role at English National Opera in London, 2017. Debuting in her home country as Mimi (La Boheme, Puccini) with the West Australian Opera in 2018 she then returned the following year as Violetta Valéry in Verdi’s La Traviata. She is the first Australian opera graduate of one of the most prestigious institutes of music, Curtis Institute of Music, where she graduated with the Festorazzi Scholarship for most promising vocalist.

Paul O'Neill
Tenor

Australian tenor Paul O’Neill has forged a compelling international career performing throughout Europe and Australasia. In 2022, he sings Cavaradossi (Tosca), Alfredo (La traviata) for West Australian Opera and is tenor soloist in Britten’s War Requiem for WASO.

Most recently, Paul sang Don José (Carmen), Turiddu (Cavalleria rusticana) and Canio (Pagliacci) for West Australian Opera, Rodolfo (La bohème), Narraboth (Salome) and Alfredo for Opera Australia, the title role in Faust for Theater Münster, Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly) throughout China and Cavaradossi in both Perth and Magdeburg. He has sung Don José at the Glyndebourne Festival; Laca (Jenůfa) for Opéra de Lille; Rodolfo for Halle Opera and West Australian Opera; Elvino (La sonnambula) and Laca with Graz Opera.

Other roles include: The Duke (Rigoletto) with Opera Holland Park, Opera Australia, West Australian Opera, Staatstheater Karlsruhe and Staatstheater Mainz; Turriddu, Cavaradossi, and Carlo VII (Giovanna d´Arco) for Theater Bielefeld; Jason (Médée) for Theater Bielefeld and Staatstheater Mainz and The Italian Tenor (Der Rosenkavalier) for Berlin Staatsoper.

© Patrick Togher Artists’ Management 2022

David Greco
Baritone

Internationally regarded for his interpretations of Schubert Lieder and the works of J.S. Bach, baritone David Greco has sung on some of the finest stages across Europe and has appeared as a principal in opera festivals such as Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and Glyndebourne. In 2014 he was the first Australian appointed to a position with the Sistine Chapel Choir in the Vatican.

He regularly appears with leading Australian ensembles such as Pinchgut Opera, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Sydney Philharmonia and, most recently, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in their Helpmann Awardwinning concerts of Bach’s cantata, Ich habe genug. As a principal artist with Opera Australia, he appeared in The Eighth Wonder and The Love for Three Oranges, and his appearances as Seneca in Pinchgut’s Coronation of Poppea and Momus in Platée received critical acclaim.

David Greco is an active researcher into the historical performance practice of 19th-century vocal music and recently received his doctorate from Melbourne University. This led to the first Australian recordings of historically informed performances of Schubert’s song cycles Winterreise and Die schöne Müllerin (ABC Classic), the latter receiving an ARIA nomination for Best Classical Album (2020).

Aquinas College Schola Cantorum

The Aquinas College Schola Cantorum is a choir of 35 choristers, currently consisting of boys between years 4-11. Known throughout the College as the Schola, it is a choral program unique to Aquinas College.

Formed in 2019, the Schola contributes significantly to the liturgical component of Aquinas College’s identity by singing at the daily Chapel Services, as well as at significant College events. In addition to these, the Schola also performs at the Saturday Vigil Mass at St Patrick’s Basilica, Fremantle every week during term time.

On average, each chorister spends nine hours a week making music in addition to their school commitments.

The Schola is regularly invited to perform in external events with other organisations. Opportunities have included singing with WASO, performing the National Anthem in Government House, and recording backing vocals for Andrea Corr’s Christmas Album. Several boys have successfully auditioned to sing as part of WA Opera’s Children’s Chorus for different operas, including Pagliacci, Carmen and Tosca.

Hugh Lydon
Director

WASO Chorus

The WASO Chorus was formed in 1988 and consists of around 100 volunteer choristers who represent the finest form of community music making, bringing together singers from all walks of life. They regularly feature in the WASO annual concert season, and are directed by Andrew Foote.

The Chorus has built an international reputation for its high standards and diverse range of repertoire. While its main role is to perform with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra the Chorus also maintains a profile of solo concerts, tours and community engagements.

The Chorus sings with the finest conductors and soloists including Asher Fisch, Simone Young, Stephen Layton and Paul Daniel. Recent highlights have included Brahms’ German Requiem, Mahler’s Second Symphony and Verdi’s Requiem. In 2019 the Chorus performed at the Denmark Festival of Voice and in 2018 toured China with performances of Orff’s Carmina burana. In 2020 they performed two Gala events on the Kalbarri Skywalk.

Andrew Foote
Chorus Director

David Wickham
Répétiteur

Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Chorus

The TSO Chorus was established in 1992 to present concert performances of opera but quickly broadened its repertoire to perform major choral works of all genres with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. The Chorus has also established itself as a creative force delivering cutting edge a cappella programs for iconic Tasmanian festivals.

Regular collaborations with interstate symphony orchestras have brought greater exposure, as has participation in Mitsing concerts in Berlin and Barcelona, culminating in an invitation to premiere Roxanna Panufnik’s Ever Us in the Berliner Philharmonie.

In 2020 the Chorus created The Sunrise Project, a video demonstrating the resilience and determination of choristers through a virtual performance of Ola Gjeilo’s The Ground as the emotional backdrop to sensational local scenery.

After 24 months in isolation, the TSO Chorus made a triumphant return to the Federation Concert Hall in April to perform Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.

The TSO Chorus is thrilled to be performing the mighty War Requiem with WASO and the WASO Chorus.

June Tyzack
Chorus Master

Michael Power
Répétiteur

Nadeena Beck
Chorus Coordinator

Benjamin Britten
(1913-1976)

War Requiem, Op.66

Requiem aeternam
Dies irae
Offertorium
Sanctus
Agnus Dei
Libera me

Incorporating texts of Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

The whole of my life has been devoted to acts of creation (being by profession a composer) and I cannot take part in acts of destruction. I do not believe in the Divinity of Christ, but I think his teaching is sound and his example should be followed.

Benjamin Britten wrote these words in 1942, as part of a statement to the War Board in his application for conscientious objector status. Together with his lifelong partner, Peter Pears, Britten had left the UK for New York in early 1939. They returned three years later, but ran the risk of being branded criminals and facing incarceration if their application was rejected.

Britten had been committed to the pacifist cause from a very early age, even refusing to serve in his school’s cadet force at 13. He had begun thinking about a large-scale choral work to serve as a ‘call for peace’ when Gandhi was assassinated in 1948. He was therefore keen to accept a commission from the Coventry Arts Committee, who approached him in October 1958 about the composition of a work to mark the consecration of Coventry Cathedral. The Cathedral had been destroyed by Luftwaffe bombs on 14 November 1940, in a raid nicknamed ‘Operation Moonlight Sonata’, and the Committee had ambitious plans with which to mark its reopening.

In 1961, Britten wrote to the great German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau:

I am writing what I think will be one of my most important works. It is a full-scale Requiem Mass for chorus and orchestra (in memory of those nations who died in the last war), and I am interspersing the Latin text with many poems of a great English poet, Wilfred Owen, who was killed in the First World War. These magnificent poems, full of the hate of destruction, are a kind of commentary on the Mass; they are, of course, in English. These poems will be set for tenor and baritone, with an accompaniment of chamber orchestra, placed in the middle of the other forces. They will need singing with the utmost beauty, intensity and sincerity. Peter Pears has agreed to sing the tenor part, and with great temerity, I am asking you whether you would sing the baritone.

Fischer-Dieskau accepted and Britten added a further solo part for soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, wife of his great friend and collaborator Mstislav Rostropovich.

The huge forces for the War Requiem are divided into three distinct groups, who do not perform concurrently until the final pages of the work. They are:

i. The boys’ choir, accompanied by chamber organ or harmonium, usually positioned offstage. They sing the text of the Requiem Mass in Latin and are heard as voices from heaven.

ii. The main orchestra, main chorus and soprano soloist, who also sing in Latin and represent the celebration of the mass on earth.

iii. The two male soloists, accompanied by a chamber orchestra of string quintet, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, French horn, harp and percussion. The two soloists are soldiers and their text is the poetry of Wilfred Owen.

Although Wilfred Owen was killed in action at the Battle of the Sambre – only days before the Armistice – when Britten was barely a year old, the two make curiously kindred spirits. Both were committed pacifists, both fell under the spell of a charismatic older colleague (Siegfried Sassoon in Owen’s case and W.H. Auden in Britten’s), both were discreetly gay, both challenged the Church’s role in the condoning of war and both men wrote in gritty realities, contrary to the heroic spirit of the times. In many ways, Owen’s influence legitimises Britten’s writing of the War Requiem: Owen is Britten’s soldier at the front, providing a first-hand account of life in the trenches. Unlike Britten, Owen was never accused of cowardice or desertion.

The Requiem aeternam opens with a dark and foreboding atmosphere. Church bells intone an F sharp and C natural, the interval of a tritone that Britten uses throughout the score. Disjointed phrases gradually grow longer before the boys’ chorus is heard in the distance. As the scene shifts to the battlefield, Britten mocks the sound of church bells with text from Owen’s Anthem for Doomed Youth, sung by the solo tenor (‘What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?’).

In the Dies irae, Britten connects the prophecies of the last trumpet from the Requiem text with the military bugles from Owen’s Voices. Later in the movement, the words of Owen’s The Next War (‘Out there, we’ve walked quite friendly up to Death;/ Sat down and eaten with him, cool and bland’) are sung by the two male soloists in a section marked ‘Fast and gay’. With the horrors that they face on a daily basis, the biblical Day of Judgment holds no fears for these soldiers.

The central crux of the War Requiem can be found in the Offertorium. The Latin text centres on the ancient promise of blessing that God made to Abraham and his descendants; the main chorus initially sings the text in fugal rejoicing. Britten then interpolates Owen’s The Parable of the Old Man and the Young, which tells the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac, sung by the baritone soloist. When God instructs Abraham to spare Isaac and sacrifice the ram instead, the story departs from the traditional. The baritone sings, ‘But the old man would not so, but slew his son,/ And half the seed of Europe, one by one’. When the main chorus returns, their earlier material fragments and disintegrates, just as Abraham’s promise has.

The Sanctus is composed of stark contrasts. It opens with music of great splendour, as the solo soprano leads the main chorus in worship praising the glory of God. The section culminates in magnificent brass fanfares before the pity of War is heard against the opulence of the Church. The baritone sings from Owen’s The End, words of profound despair accompanied by bare orchestral writing.

The Agnus Dei is a dialogue between tenor soloist and the main chorus, with the verses from Owen’s At a Calvary Near the Ancre being answered with the text of Requiem Mass. It is a deeply unsettling combination of words concerning the divine sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of young soldiers. At the end of the movement, the tenor sings ‘dona nobis pacem’ in an upwards scale, the only time either of the male soloists sings in Latin throughout the work.

The Libera me opens with the sound of military drums and the uneven march of soldiers, perhaps wounded, perhaps spectres. The chorus’ cries for deliverance become more impassioned and each utterance of the word ‘ignem’ (fire) is accompanied by the sound of the whip in the percussion section, as if to stress its potential double-meaning as ‘gunfire’. From the rubble of the battlefield, we hear the text of Owen’s Strange Meeting, a conversation between two soldiers from opposing sides. It later becomes clear that this is a meeting between the killer and the killed and that both soldiers are already dead. As they duet on the words ‘Let us sleep now’, Britten finally unites his entire forces in music of hope and reconciliation. However just as a resolution sounds possible, the tritone bells sound again in warning. The dissonance leaves the listener musically and emotionally unsettled, as if to emphasise the perpetual threat of war.

War Requiem was premiered on 30 May 1962 in difficult circumstances. The Soviet Minister for Culture, Ekaterina Furtseva, had prevented Galina Vishnevskaya from leaving Russia, asking, ‘How can you, a Soviet woman, stand next to a German and an Englishman and perform a political work?’; British soprano Heather Harper was therefore given only ten days to learn the work. Britten himself was suffering from what he described as ‘a rotten arm’ and so decided to split the conducting duties with Meredith Davies, who had been preparing the choruses; Britten would conduct the chamber orchestra and male soloists while Davies would direct the main orchestra, chorus and soprano soloist. The problems continued however: the composer described the acoustics as ‘lunatic’, the cathedral authorities would not allow any staging to be erected, performing space was cramped and the entire audience was ushered in through one tiny door.

Despite all this, the premiere was a triumph. Reviewing the performance, playwright Peter Shaffer declared, ‘I believe it to be the most impressive and moving piece of sacred music ever to be composed in this country … the most profound and moving thing which this most committed of geniuses has so far achieved. It makes criticism impertinent.’ Further performances abounded and Decca released a recording of the work the following year, with Vishnevskaya finally in place as the solo soprano; it sold an unprecedented 200,000 copies in the first five months alone. Britten had clearly tapped into the contemporary zeitgeist and written a work that people needed to hear. Its continued popularity is evidence of the piece’s lasting resonance and relevance. As Owen wrote, and as Britten quoted on the front page of the score, ‘My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity … All a poet can do today is warn.’

Huw Humphreys © 2010

First performance:
30 May 1962, Coventry. Meredith Davies and Benjamin Britten conducting.

WASO's only previous performance:
3 March 1979. David Measham, conductor.

Main Orchestra Instrumentation:
three flutes (3rd = piccolo), two oboes, English horn, three clarinets (3rd = bass clarinet and E-flat clarinet), two bassoons, contrabassoon, six horns, four trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, piano, harmonium, organ and strings.

Chamber Orchestra Instrumentation:
flute (= piccolo), oboe (= English horn), clarinet, bassoon, horn, timpani, harp and single quintet.