Next year, the Adelaide Festival will present Ballett Zürich’s staging of Verdi’s Requiem. Jansson J. Antmann talks to choreographer Christian Spuck and looks back at the work of Peter Sellars, Barrie Kosky and Romeo Castellucci to determine whether the oratorio has regained its long-lost theatrical mantle.
The term “oratorio” is derived from the Oratory – a large room built in the mid-16th century within the Roman church of San Girolamo della Carità. It housed Saint Philip Neri’s religious conferences, which included moral musical entertainments alongside charitable work and devotional activities.
The oldest surviving oratorio is Rappresentazione di anima et di corpo (The Representation of Soul and Body). A precursor to the form we’ve come to know from composers...
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