When Words Fail, Music Speaks
The career of a Metropolitan Opera chorister is chock-full of memorable events. “Top Ten” performances, defined by gorgeous music, world-class soloists, or exciting productions are common, but none of them could prepare us for the experience of performing the Verdi Requiem on the 20th anniversary of 9/11. The weight and gravity of the evening alone was enough to create an emotional musical experience to remember. But there was even more significance this year, as this special performance of the Verdi Requiem was the first performance on the Met stage since March 11th, 2020 (the Met would shut its doors the next day due to the COVID-19 pandemic). Naturally, many of the choristers had much to say about the experience.
The Metropolitan Opera Chorus, Orchestra, and soloists, led by Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Photo: Met Opera/Richard Termine.
Soprano Danielle Walker was overcome by the gravity of the experience. “Singing the Verdi Requiem with the Met Opera on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 was truly an honor. From the moment we stepped into a standing ovation to the final note sung, I shed so many tears.” Like so many of her colleagues, she wrestled with “financial, mental, physical, and emotional struggles” and lost friends and loved ones to COVID, and performing the Requiem was cathartic, and brought to her a sense of renewal after a year and a half of artistic stagnation. “I began to feel like a person again, part of a bigger picture.”
Daniel Clark Smith (right) and his husband, pianist Michael Caldwell, on a delightful hike.
Veteran chorister and Chorus Committee member Daniel Clark Smith also realized, like Danielle, that he had experienced a version of an identity crisis during the Met’s closure. “I realized that my identity is so closely aligned with my line of work that I felt a real loss of self.” Daniel had performed the piece multiple times with the Met Chorus and Orchestra, but this particular iteration “brought a new emotional dimension to the piece for me, after losing so much to the Met’s closure for the last year and a half. Singing the Verdi Requiem was absolutely exhilarating, both musically and emotionally. Commemorating the anniversary of 9/11 led me to recall the last 20 years, reflecting on the city's and the nation's losses, as well as the personal losses I've suffered in that time.” Many choristers, Daniel included, were truly inspired by the leadership and artistic direction of the Met’s Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who conducted both the Mahler and the Verdi, and brought everyone together for “a truly moving experience.” As the chorus’s Safety Delegate, Daniel was particularly happy with the Met’s COVID safety precautions, which brought him comfort as he sang indoors without a mask for the first time during the pandemic. It freed him to fully invest himself in his musical performance. The whole experience, he thinks, will serve as a highlight of his Met career.
Mezzo-soprano Rosalie Sullivan was so moved by the experience that it was difficult to put her feelings into words, even months after the performances. “How can there be words adequate for such a moment?” she asks, recognizing the weighty confluence of events: “the 20-year anniversary of 9/11, 18 months to the day since our last performance together onstage at The Met, and our first unmasked indoor performance after a year and a half of COVID. On a good day, the Verdi Requiem has the power to shake me to my bones, but to perform it under these circumstances was overwhelming. So many layers of loss and grief and remembrance.”
“At the same time,” she said, “it was a profound gift to be a part of that performance and to finally offer ourselves up again in and through music. I don't expect I will ever have another such experience in my lifetime. The only word I can find for it is ‘sacred.’”
Gloria Watson (center) with her husband, Met carpenter Dana Watson and her son, Taylor.
Mezzo-soprano Gloria Watson was one of eight Met choristers who retired during the pandemic. It was heartbreaking for her to leave so abruptly, without being able to say a proper goodbye to her friends and colleagues after 27 years in the Met Chorus, but she made the difficult decision to end her career at the Met in August of 2020. Incredibly, she got a call from Chorus Administrator Dan Hoy in August of 2021 with an offer to sing one more time, as an extra-chorister, in the Met’s September performances of Mahler’s 2nd Symphony and Verdi’s Requiem. She was overjoyed to be able to return to “the house” to sing in these two incredible works of musical art, particularly since she had never performed the Mahler. But it was the Verdi Requiem that offered her the greatest emotional experience. Being in the city during the 9/11 attacks meant struggling with anxiety in the aftermath, and a pronounced fear of public transportation. “To be able to perform the Requiem on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 was cathartic. It was the most emotion I’ve ever felt [during a performance].”
Gloria started her career in 1994 “with Pavarotti and Teresa Stratas” and ended it with the Verdi Requiem, on a historic day for both the Met and for New York City. For Gloria, for every performer on the stage, and for the sold-out audience on its feet before a note was sung, it was a colossal gift.
“When you think about what we do for a living, how we feed our souls…to be able to say goodbye this way is one of the most extraordinary things I’ve ever done.”
