"Defiant Requiem"

Documentary Film

The documentary film "Defiant Requiem" tells the story of Czech conductor and pianist Rafael Schächter and his production of Verdi’s Messa da Requiem in Theresienstadt, more than 70 years ago. Director Doug Shultz combines the recollections of surviving members of Schächter’s choir with archival material, and documents the rehearsals of Murry Sidlin’s production "Defiant Requiem" in Theresienstadt today.

Documentary, USA / UK / Czech Republic 2012, Director: Doug Shultz, 85 min, English, original version

Past event
Where

W. M. Blumenthal Academy,
Klaus Mangold Auditorium

Fromet-und-Moses-Mendelssohn-Platz 1, 10969 Berlin
(Opposite the Museum)

Where, when, what?
Where

W. M. Blumenthal Academy,
Klaus Mangold Auditorium

Fromet-und-Moses-Mendelssohn-Platz 1, 10969 Berlin
(Opposite the Museum)

Where, when, what?

  • When

    3 March 2014, 7.30 pm

  • Where
    W. M. Blumenthal Academy,
    Klaus Mangold Auditorium

    Fromet-und-Moses-Mendelssohn-Platz 1, 10969 Berlin
    (Opposite the Museum)

    See location on map
Events Accompanying Defiant Requiem (6) Terezín Remembrance Week Show all

Terezín Remembrance Week

With Defiant Requiem, performed internationally every year since 2002, the American conductor Murry Sidlin commemorates the performances of Verdi’s Requiem at the Terezín (Theresienstadt) ghetto. The dramatized concert consists of an unabridged performance of Verdi’s requiem mass interspersed with readings of eyewitness accounts and extracts from a Nazi propaganda film about Terezín. The concert had its German premiere on 4 March 2014 at the Konzerthaus Berlin. The concert was accompanied by numerous events related to Terezín.

Cultural Trip to Prague and Terezín

31 January – 2 February 2014
To go along with the performance of the Verdi Requiem, staged as a dramatic concert titled Defiant Requiem, we are organizing a study trip to Prague and Theresienstadt.

Art and Culture in the Terezín Ghetto

2 March 2014, 11 am – 6 pm
In four lectures, the symposium explores the history of Theresienstadt, the “ghetto of exceptions,” from four different angles.

Verdi’s "Messa da Requiem" at the Theresienstadt Ghetto

4 March 2014, 8 pm
The dramatic concert Defiant Requiem is dedicated to the Czech conductor and pianist Rafael Schächter, who performed the Verdi Requiem with hundreds of Theresienstadt Ghetto prisoners approximately seventy years ago.

"As if it were a Life"

27 February 2014, 7.30 pm
Reading from the “Tatsachenbericht” by Philipp Manes from the Theresienstadt Ghetto, 1942–44

Transport from paradise

1 March 2014, 7.30 pm
Zbyněk Brynych, Czechoslovakia 1963, 98 min.

Defiant Requiem Documentary Film

3 March 2014, 7:30 pm
The documentary film tells the story of the Czech conductor and pianist Rafael Schächter and his performance of the Verdi Requiem in Theresienstadt.

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