Muti wraps the Chicago Symphony’s season with a powerful Verdi Requiem (again)
When the current Chicago Symphony Orchestra season was announced last year, there was much excitement that Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust would be presented, conducted by Riccardo Muti. Many subscribers were looking forward to Berlioz’s légende dramatique with anticipation in what would be the work’s first CSO appearance in 17 years.
Unfortunately, not long after, it was announced that the season-closing Berlioz would be changed to—you guessed it—the Verdi Requiem, Muti’s perennial CSO party piece.
The reason for the change was never explained. Asked about it again this week, a CSO representative issued a statement that the orchestra’s music director emeritus for life “decided to change the focus of his culminating June 2025 program to Verdi Requiem since he was preparing it for other performances in Paris, Philadelphia and London for the 2024/25 season.”
That shows where you stand, Chicago Symphony subscribers. Who do you think you are, Europeans?
That lofty lack of concern for the interests of the CSO’s hometown audience continues to rankle many concertgoers. But clearly not enough to prevent a strong turnout for the Verdi Requiem Thursday night in the final program of the CSO season.
This week’s concerts mark the sixth outing for Verdi’s Messa da Requiem by Muti and the CSO since 2009, and will make a total of 17 performances (including on tour) by the end of this latest run.
Program repetition aside, there are few conductors on today’s scene with the kind of innate sympathy and complete understanding that Muti brings to Verdi’s complex and challenging Requiem, and those qualities were largely apparent again Thursday night.
That’s not to say that everything was ideal. Muti has always taken an unapologetically theatrical approach to this most operatic of Requiems, pointing up the dramatic contrasts and dynamic extremes. But Muti whipped up the orchestra—especially, the brass, timpani and bass drum—to such an assaultive volume in the Dies Irae outbursts that even the hard-working, 140-member chorus was buried by the sonic explosions. For Muti in this score, there is no such thing as too loud.
The roiling spiritual struggle of the mass was powerfully manifest. Yet on this occasion the conductor’s mastery of the score was more apparent in the restrained moments—the skillful balancing of the four trumpets with the two players offstage in the Tuba mirum, or the delicate charm of the three flutes’ pastoral gamboling in the Agnus Dei.
If anything, Muti’s interpretation of Verdi’s Requiem delved even deeper than previously. Tempos were broader overall—especially in the spacious Domine Jesu Christe—but the 90-minute journey never dragged in this highly dramatic performance.
The quartet of soloists contributed much to the evening’s success.
The mezzo-soprano is first among equals in this work, garnering most of the best solos and leading off nearly every quartet section. And in this assignment, Marianne Crebassa was extraordinary. A charismatic Dorabella in Lyric Opera’s 2018 Così fan tutte, the French mezzo sang with refinement and rich tone throughout, bringing sincerity and expressive depth to all her spotlit moments, particularly the Liber scriptus and Agnus Dei.
Crebassa and tenor John Osborn were originally slated for the roles of Marguerite and Faust in the discarded Berlioz. With his febrile high voice, Osborn proved equally well suited to the Requiem and floated a graceful solo line in the Ingemisco. Maharram Huseynov—a late substitution for Ildebrando D’Arcangelo—anchored the low end with a focused and authoritative bass-baritone.
Elena Guseva’s voice is on the light side for this assignment and the Russian soprano had trouble negotiating the steep descending line in Domine Jesu Christe. But she largely acquitted herself creditably, blending gratefully with Crebassa in the Recordare, and rising to the challenge of the climactic Libera me, where she starkly conveyed the text’s alternating psychic desperation and plaintive pleading for deliverance.
Donald Palumbo is listed as guest chorus director for these concerts, but, as the orchestra announced earlier this month, he will take up the permanent post on July 1. Muti’s punching up the orchestral volume didn’t do Palumbo’s singers any favors, and clarity of words suffered in the heaven-storming moments. Yet the large ensemble elsewhere delivered the Verdian goods, singing with polished cohesion, tackling the Libera me fugue with security, and gracefully supporting the soloists in their collaborative moments.
Similarly, the orchestra musicians once again played with daunting fire and searing intensity, not least the bullet-ricochet brass in the dramatic moments.
The Verdi Requiem will be repeated 7:30 p.m. Saturday and Tuesday. cso.org
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The CSO announced this week that assistant principal trumpet Mark Ridenour will retire following these Verdi concerts.
“It has been an honor to work with incredible musicians and share great music with audiences in Chicago, across the country and around the world as a member of this Orchestra,” said Ridenour in a released statement. “To touch the heart and the soul of the listener is the goal of any musician, and to connect to people through music is something that I hope I can continue to do whenever I have the opportunity. I am grateful for the memories of countless great performances and experiences during my years with the Orchestra.”
Appointed to his post by Daniel Barenboim in 1994, Ridenour held the same position with the CSO for 31 seasons, playing with consistently polished musicianship and rock-steady reliability. He also served as the CSO’s acting principal trumpet during that slot’s vacancies (2003-05, 2016-19 and 2024-25).
Ridenour will be recognized with the CSO’s Theodore Thomas Medallion for Distinguished Service at a date to be announced later. Read the CSO’s complete press release on his retirement here.
