Church and State

Verdi's Messa da Requiem was first performed in church as part of a liturgical ceremony - a curious hybrid in which the ‘movements’ of Verdi's Roman-rite Mass alternated with Ambrosian-rite plainchant. ‘While Verdi conducted the performance of the Requiem, Monsignor Calvi celebrated a “dry mass” [Messa secca] that is, without the consecration of the bread and wine.’ His primary criterion in selecting the church seems to have been its acoustics: he passed over the Cathedral, San Fedele (the church that Manzoni frequented), and Santa Maria delle Grazie in favour of San Marco. Ricordi informed Verdi that the parish priest, ‘Don Michele Mongeri, is a cultivated man, likeable, and liberal, although religious … You will get on very well with him.’ It fell to Mongeri to obtain permission from the Archbishop to allow women to participate in the performance. This was eventually granted, provided that ‘all possible precautions [be taken] that the women be hidden by a grating, [placed] off to one side, or something similar’. Indeed, at the San Marco performance - but not subsequent performances - the female choristers wore ’a full black dress with the head covered by an ample mourning veil’.

When Verdi first offered to compose and conduct the Requiem, the Mayor accepted without hesitation, but when the proposal was deliberated by the Milan City Council on 24 February 1874, two councillors questioned the expenses, while another argued that it was inappropriate for the City to ‘associate itself with religious ceremonies, with a Mass to be celebrated, and for which one would need to choose the church and ask permission of the Archbishop’.