Verdi's Requiem

I read about Verdi's Requiem once on Reader's Digest. The story really touched me. So I went and did a little research about this guy. Its quite interesting.


Rafael Schaechter, outstanding counductor and pianist, born 1905 in Romania, took music lessons in Brno, then graduated from Prague conservatory. Since 1934, Schaechter worked as a pianist in the famous E.F. Burian Theater, and as a singing-master. In 1937 he established the Chamber Opera where forgotten baroque music was played. Due to Nazi persecutions, Schaechter was cut down to private lessons and home concerts.


As Schaechter arrived in Terezin in November 1941, he was appointed to the fire brigade. How long he was a fireman is not known, but it is known that in early '42 he established a choir. In one of the concerts, for example, 15 songs were sung in Czech and Hebrew, 13 of them arranged by another Terezin musical star, young composer Gideon Klein.

In the summer 1942 Schaechter began to rehearse the opera The Bartered Bride by the Czech composer Bedrich Smetana. In November the first performance, yet without set and costumes, took place.

"For a Czech, The Bartered Bride is a folk opera, it is associated with all the previous life", a singer Bedrich Borges relates: "A Prague Jew is one third a Jew, one third Czech and one third German・And there, we were also Czechs, not only Jews. I remember, when we started to sing 'How Could We Be Happy', I was looking from the choir at the people ・they were crying. In Terezin, one felt such things stronger than in the normal world. Rafael Schaechter literally poured spirit into people. I remember, for example, how he was working with choir in opera The Kiss. I didn't sing and sat in the audience; I looked at Schaechter and thought I was looking at Johann Sebastian Bach. The man was simply impregnated by music, a rock of a man・

After The Bartered Bride and The Kiss (also by Smetana) the following operas were staged, already in scenic versions: The Enchanted Flute and Figaro's Marriage by Mozart, La Serva Padrona (The Maid Turned Mistress) by Pergolesi, and finally, Bastien and Bastienne, Mozart's idyllic pastorale with children's choir.

Requiem by Verdi became Schaechter's apotheosis. He started rehearsals in mid-1943 with a choir of 150 people and four soloists. Soon after the premiere, half of the cast was washed away by September transports. Schaechter recruited another troupe, rehearsed with them thoroughly, and set the Requiem on stage again. The end of December transports devastated the choir ・40 persons were shipped away to the death camps. And Schaechter staffs the third, and the last, cast. They perform the Requiem 15 times. Finally, the cast is deported together with the conductor・