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In anticipation of Opera Orlando’s Florida premiere of Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín, they are hosting a FREE screening of a feature-length documentary film also entitled Defiant Requiem. This film highlights the most dramatic example of intellectual and artistic courage in the Theresienstadt (Terezín) Concentration Camp during World War II: the remarkable story of Rafael Schächter, a brilliant, young Czech conductor who, after being arrested and sent to Terezín in 1941, organized a chorus of 150 prisoners to sing Verdi’s Requiem in an act of strength and resistance. With testimony provided by surviving members of Schächter’s choir, soaring concert footage, cinematic dramatizations, and evocative animation, this unique film explores the singers’ view of the Verdi Requiem as a work of defiance against the Germans at that time. The text of the Mass enabled them, as Schächter told the chorus, to “sing to the Nazis what they could not say to them.”Conceived by The Defiant Requiem Foundation’s president and founder, Murry Sidlin, a distinguished conductor, educator, and artistic innovator, the film Defiant Requiem was written and directed by Doug Shultz. A Q&A session with Maestro Sidlin will follow the film, which has a run time of 85 minutes.
Opera Orlando’s presentation of Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín is produced in partnership with The Defiant Requiem Foundation, Orlando Sings, and the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra and is a benefit concert, with all ticket sales being donated to the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida.
This concert is generously supported by the Ginsburg Family Foundation, Mary & Frank Doherty, Carla D'Andre & David Treitel and Valeria & Jim Shapiro. Sponsorship packages which include tickets to the event are available for private donors, corporations, and foundations and can be purchased by contacting Opera Orlando at (407) 512-1900 or by emailing [email protected].
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
445 S Magnolia Ave, Orlando, FL, United States, Florida 32801
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