Boston Philharmonic Orchestra Performs Verdi’s Monumental Requiem on Sunday, November 23 at Symphony Hall

The Boston Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO), under the direction of Founder and Conductor Benjamin Zander, presents Verdi’s dramatic and deeply moving Requiem on Sunday, November 23, at 3:00 PM in Boston’s Symphony Hall. The concert will also be live streamed on YouTube.

Prior to the concert at 1:45 PM, Benjamin Zander will offer a 45-minute “Guide to the Music,” designed to welcome lay listeners into the musical and spiritual significance of one of history’s greatest choral works. “Because of its agnostic approach to the requiem and because it is experienced through the eyes of the terrified mourners as represented by the chorus, Verdi’s Requiem could perhaps be regarded as the most famous religious work of the past to most closely reflects the temper of our times,” says Zander.

Verdi’s towering masterpiece brings together four of today’s most celebrated operatic voices, each acclaimed on the world’s leading stages:

• Ailyn Pérez, the trailblazing soprano and the first Hispanic recipient of the Richard Tucker Award
• Daniela Mack, the Argentine mezzo-soprano at the forefront of a new generation of international stars
• John Osborn, the American tenor renowned for his mastery of bel canto and French Grand Opéra
• Maharram Huseynov, the Baku-born bass and guest soloist at Russia’s Mariinsky Theatre

Osborn and Huseynov are reuniting for this concert after performing the Requiem this past spring with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Chorus pro Musica, led by Jamie Kirsch, also performs with guidance from Donald Palumbo, the renowned Metropolitan Opera chorus master. In 1981, as Chorus pro Musica’s music director, Palumbo prepared the ensemble for Zander’s first Verdi Requiem. Forty-five years later, he returns to the Boston Philharmonic as guest choral coach, offering his artistic insight and expertise that have made him one of the world’s foremost choral leaders.

Written in memory of the Italian poet and patriot Alessandro Manzoni, Verdi’s Requiem is one of the most frequently performed choral works in the repertoire. With its thunderous “Dies Irae” (“Day of wrath, that terrible day”), soaring solo arias, and luminous final prayer, it is a piece that bridges operatic drama and sacred intensity.

Tickets are $125, $95, $62, $32/pay-what-you-can, and $12 for students with code STU-DIS; subscription packages are also available. Purchase at www.bostonphil.org or by calling 617-236-0999.