ABSTRACT
Following the premiere of Verdi’s Requiem in Milan in 1874, the composer’s longstanding and widespread reputation as Italy’s foremost opera composer prompted critics to raise questions about the Requiem’s perceived operatic style and controversial choices of venue for performance. Nearly 150 years later, debates around the Requiem’s sacred and/or theatrical qualities continue to dominate musicological discussions of the work. As this study explores, the ways in which these debates unfolded in 1870s Britain were particularly unusual. The British press, initially reliant on second-hand information about the Requiem and therefore limited in their ability to comment on the growing controversies on the continent, adopted patterns of response established decades earlier during the reception of Verdi’s operas. When the Requiem was finally performed at the Royal Albert Hall a year after its world premiere, long-held British cultural values regarding dramatic sacred music and the custom of performing sacred music in a multiplicity of venues reframed the earlier debates in ways particular to British musical identity. The presentation of the work in London drew on British conceptions of opera, sacred choral music, and concert traditions, offering insight into how Verdi’s fame as an opera composer ultimately came to shape its reception.
