Verdi’s Requiem provides the perfect score for a monumental moment in time, taking the Requiem as a symbol of new beginnings for the City and the Festival. The Festival’s centrepiece production, this music is an invitation to gather and look within ourselves as the music invites us to reflect and have hope.

When Verdi’s dear friend, poet and national hero Alessandro Manzoni died, he was too grief-stricken to attend the funeral, so he composed a requiem to honour his memory. What emerged out of his sorrow is one of the most powerful works for orchestra and voice ever written.

Sometimes referred to as “an opera in ecclesiastical vestments”, Verdi’s gift for dramatic writing is on full display in this remarkable score for almost a hundred musicians and a chorus of over sixty singers. Asking the grand questions of life, it takes the audience on an intense musical journey from the depths of profound despair to ecstatic hope – a transcendent work, once experienced never forgotten.

We look forward to welcoming you at this once-in-a-lifetime musical concert under the stars of the Gold Coast.