The Camden Choir goes Italian this Autumn. We shall be performing Puccini’s magnificent Messa di Gloria, which was first staged in the church of Sts Paolino and Donato in Lucca on 12 July 1880. Puccini composed the Mass as his graduation exercise from the Istituto Musicale Pacini, although the Credo had already been written and performed in 1878 – Puccini initially conceived it as a self-contained work. Puccini never published the full manuscript of the Messa and, although well received at the time, it was not performed again until 1952 (first in Chicago and then in Naples).
We shall also sing Puccini’s Requiem, composed in 1905, as a tribute for the fourth anniversary of Verdi’s death, and Rossini’s haunting Ave Maria. The Requiem is very short and is a setting of the Latin opening antiphon from the Requiem mass. It was first performed on 27 January 1905 by the choir of La Scala in Milan. In addition, our soloists – Benjamin Durrant (tenor) and Jerome Knox (baritone) – will perform arias by Verdi, Rossini and Puccini.
