Rufus Wainwright’s Dream Requiem (2024), by the acclaimed Canadian singer and composer, is a contemporary musical creation based on the Catholic funeral mass. Wainwright intertwines the Latin Requiem liturgy with excerpts from Lord Byron’s poem Darkness, written in 1816—the so-called “year without a summer.” Following the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, the sky darkened and Europe was cast into an atmosphere of profound existential uncertainty. Wainwright juxtaposes that early-19th-century sense of impending apocalypse with the experience of the recent pandemic: isolation, collective grief, and the urgent human need for solidarity, which lies at the heart of his work.
With large forces on stage—symphony orchestra, choirs, soprano, and narrator—drawing on the mature Romantic tradition and with Verdi as a point of stylistic reference, the composer shapes a dramatic, multi-layered, and bold narrative about how societies confront fear and the search for meaning in times of crisis.
CO-PRODUCTION
Lykofos
Megaron – The Athens Concert Hall
