Last night, I was privileged to be the bass soloist for a very special performance of the Verdi Requiem. This is a treat that I have been awaiting for a long, long time – ever since studying one of the bass solos during graduate school, more than thirty years ago. But last night’s performance was not remarkable because I was part of it … nor remarkable for the participation of any of the singers in the chorus, or my fellow soloists, or the musicians in the orchestra, or James Schatzman on the podium. No, it was remarkable because of the brave men and women whom it commemorated: prisoners in Terezin who sang this work for their Nazi captors 70 years ago. It’s an extraordinary story that might seem to be the stuff of legend …. or Hollywood screenplays. But it’s absolutely true.
Most likely you know the name Terezin – one of the camps in which the Nazis imprisoned Jews by the thousands, held until they could be moved along to extermination camps like Dachau or Auschwitz. The conditions at Terezin were awful and inhumane, but it was also a place where a remarkably vibrant artistic culture was allowed to develop … some of it with the tacit permission of the Nazis … some of it actually encouraged by the Nazis in order to foster a false impression to the outside world of how humane these camps were …. and some of it occurring “underground,” outside of their captors’ view. When Kathy and I were in Prague in 1998 with the Carthage Alumni Choir, there was an incredibly moving display in the Old Jewish Synagogue (adjacent to the Jewish Cemetery) which featured children’s artwork from Terezin – all kinds of colorful and remarkably cheerful creations, including one piece which haunts me to this day – a homemade film strip (drawn on what resembled the kind of long strip of paper that might be on a roll inside a cash register) which depicted Disney characters like Mickey Mouse. Until then, I never would have guessed that young children in the former Czech Republic in the early 1940’s would have been aware of Mickey Mouse. One can’t help but contrast the world of Walt Disney with the dark, dangerous world in which these children found themselves.
Terezin was also where musically-inclined captives presented concerts and operas (including Smetana’s light hearted comedy The Bartered Bride) – and where much new music was composed and performed. A few years ago, I wrote a review for the Journal of Singing of an incredibly moving recording of songs from Terezin. Until then, I only had the vaguest notion of what Terezin had been – but the deeper I dug the more compelling the story became. What an incredible testimony to the power of music to sustain the human soul in its darkest hours. This is music that deserves to be heard and a story that needs to be retold.
At the heart of the artistic community at Terezin was a young Romanian jew named Rafael Schaechter. He had settled in Prague and was well-known as a capable pianist and chorus master – and even founded his own small opera company. This was a gifted young man of great promise. Then the evil shadow of Nazism descended and Schaechter, like most Jews, was forbidden from engaging in public performances of any kind. Once this restriction had tightened its heartless grip, Schaechter had to resort to giving piano lessons to make any semblance of a living, grimly hanging in the hope that better days were coming.
Instead, Schaechter found himself shipped off to Terezin, built a century and a half earlier as a fortress – but repurposed by the Nazis as a prison for Jews. Permitted to bring with him the contents of a single suitcase, one of the things which Schaechter to bring with him to Terezin was the score to Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem, a work which he greatly loved. But what could he have been thinking? How likely was it that such a score could possibly be of use to him in a place like Terezin?
But as it turns out, Schaechter became a primary force in the artistic community Terezin, leading a somewhat ragtag group of volunteer singers and shaping them into an amazingly skilled ensemble. And at some point, Schaechter got the incredible idea of teaching his chorus the score of Verdi’s Requiem – a complex, 70-minute work that would be challenging to master even under the best of circumstances. What made this a truly astounding undertaking was that Schachter had only the one, single copy of the score …. so the chorus had to be taught the entire work by rote. That is, they had to listen to Schaechter play and sing their parts for them – and they had to learn, polish and memorize the music without ever actually seeing the musical score for themselves. I cannot imagine a more difficult challenge confronting that young conductor …. or, for that matter, those singers. But night after night those singers gathered in a cramped, unheated, barely lit room – in most cases after long days of hard labor – and rehearsed. The first performance was much appreciated by those who heard it- and a source of great pride and satisfaction for those who sang it …. but the very next day, a number of choir members were shipped off to various extermination camps. Undaunted, Schaechter rebuilt his choir again and again – retaught the Requiem again and again – and the work was performed on 15 subsequent occasions.
The last of those performances, in the fall of 1944, was especially dramatic because it was sung at the request of Terezin officials who were welcoming a Red Cross delegation from Holland who were investigating what conditions were like at the camp. The Nazis spared no expense in refurbishing the camp and set up all kinds of activities which had never taken place – soccer matches, calisthenics, etc. – and the performance of the Verdi Requiem was one of the central events of that visit. Schaechter agreed to revive the Verdi one last time, believing that it was an opportunity for the singers to sing things to their captors which they dare not say: demanding their freedom (Libera me!) and warning them that they faced eternal punishment in God’s day of wrath (Dies irae!) for the horrendous evil which they had done. The performance is said to have angered the Terezin leaders who witnessed it, and nearly all of the choir members, plus Rafael Schaechter, were with the next group to be shipped off to their deaths. What is especially heartbreaking is that Schaechter perished on a death march just one month before Czechoslovakia was liberated from the Naxis. He was only 40 years old.
This final Verdi Requiem at Terezin has come to be known as the Defiant Requiem, and it has been recreated in a number of places – and last night in Racine, I was privileged to be part of one such performance. The soloists and chorus members – and conductor James Schatzman were all dressed in clothing roughly similar to what the choir in Terezin is known to have worn. And all of us who performed the work – including the orchestra – were pinned with paper stars that said “Jude” … just as the Jews of that time and place were forced to wear. In the front row of the audience were several people dressed up as Nazi officers, as well as a women garbed as a nurse, representing the Red Cross. And the performance was done in a converted hangar at Racine’s airport, so the setting would be stark and somewhat cold. It was an inspired choice.
As for last night’s performance itself, it was incredibly intense- and not just because of this memorial that was at the heart of it. This was a tremendous difficult challenge, musically, for all of us- and it was hard not to wish that we had been able to rehearse for another week in order to settle certain issues and polish certain raw moments. But I for one am grateful that the performance was fraught with that kind of tension, because I think it helped us to even better identify with the men and women in Terezin who were part of that remarkable performance from 70 years ago, who courageously sang this under circumstances that could have scarcely been more difficult. I am certain that most if not all of those Terezin inmates could not have dreamt that the story of their Defiant Requiem would live on. Instead, I am sure that they expected their lives, their legacies, and their very names to vanish into utter oblivion. But no- they are remembered … and honored … and inspiring new generations of musicians with their bold and courageous act of defiance.
The so-called Defiant Requiem was performed by the combined choral forces of the Choral Arts Society of Southeastern Wisconsin and the Kenosha Chamber Choir, accompanied by the Festival Arts Orchestra. My fellow soloists were Erin Sura, Brianna Sura, and Edson Melendez. The conductor was James Schatzman.