Verdi’s Requiem – Saturday 23 May at 6pm at the Deauville International Centre

220 performers on the CID stage: 150 Norman choristers and 70 musicians from the Wirral Symphony Orchestra

Ima­gine 150 voices rising in uni­son, sup­por­ted by the power of a sym­phony orchestra:

This is a titan­ic chal­lenge, trans­form­ing a human adven­ture into an inter­na­tion­al artist­ic event. This pro­ject brings togeth­er the Ensemble Vocal Renais­sance and Ensemble Vocal Impres­sions (both based in Le Havre), the Chœur de Rouen Nor­man­die, and the Wir­ral Sym­phony Orches­tra (Liv­er­pool).

For the fam­ous Sanc­tus, Verdi con­ceived a com­plex struc­ture in which two choirs must respond to one anoth­er, chal­lenge each oth­er, and ulti­mately unite.
As the treas­urer of the Ensemble Vocal Renais­sance explains:
“It requires a power­ful orches­tra, and above all two choirs that answer one another.”

From Liverpool to Normandy

Since 2014, an unbreak­able friend­ship has linked Nor­man chor­is­ters with the Wir­ral Sym­phony Orches­tra from the Liv­er­pool region.
This cross-Chan­nel part­ner­ship is built on a nat­ur­al exchange: French chor­is­ters will join the Brit­ish orches­tra for a per­form­ance on 3 May at Liverpool’s Roy­al Phil­har­mon­ic Hall, con­duc­ted by Jonath­an Small. In return, Brit­ish musi­cians will cross the Chan­nel to join their French coun­ter­parts on 23 and 24 May.

Verdi’s Requiem

Tack­ling the Requiem demands iron dis­cip­line. Since Septem­ber, the chor­is­ters have worked tire­lessly to mas­ter the vir­tu­os­ity of the fugues and the rhythmic pre­ci­sion required by Verdi. With 150 voices, syn­chron­isa­tion must be flawless.

Along­side this tech­nic­al work comes the equally essen­tial task of inter­pret­ing the emo­tions con­tained with­in the Requiem text: sup­plic­a­tion, fear, hope, ten­der­ness. These con­trasts are expressed by Verdi through shifts in ton­al col­our, express­ive melod­ies, and sooth­ing harmonies.

A historic first at the CID

The Deau­ville Inter­na­tion­al Centre (CID), usu­ally home to con­fer­ences and con­ven­tions, is open­ing its doors to a clas­sic­al ensemble of this scale in what prom­ises to be a his­tor­ic first.

The CID stage, meas­ur­ing 20 metres long by 15 metres wide (300 m²), can accom­mod­ate all 220 per­formers sim­ul­tan­eously: 70 musi­cians at the front and 150 chor­is­ters on tiered plat­forms above.

From local choristers to Radio France soloists

The pas­sion­ate com­mit­ment of an exper­i­enced ama­teur choir, sup­por­ted by the expert­ise of inter­na­tion­al soloists:

• Ten­or Pas­cal Bour­geois – from the pres­ti­gi­ous Radio France Choir
• Bass Chae-Wook Lim – from the pres­ti­gi­ous Radio France Choir
• Sop­rano Bar­bara Ruz­sics – trained at the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest
• Alto Anne-Claire Tilly – trained at the con­ser­vatoires of Rouen and Le Havre

By bring­ing togeth­er sing­ers from Le Havre and Rouen, musi­cians from Liv­er­pool, and voices from Radio France, this event reminds us that music pos­sesses a unique power: to build eph­em­er­al cathed­rals made of breath and rhythm.

Do not miss this rare oppor­tun­ity to wit­ness – and above all to feel – Verdi’s geni­us in all its monu­ment­al splendour.

Practical Information

• Date: Sat­urday 23 May 2026 at 6:00 pm
• Ven­ue: CID – Deauville
• Prices: €30 (full price) / €10 (stu­dents and under 18s)
• Tick­ets: HERE

Altern­at­ively, scan the QR code on posters to access the Hel­loAsso tick­et­ing plat­form. Tick­ets are also avail­able via the Con­grès-Deau­ville and InDeau­ville web­sites, or at “Il Était une Cave” in Touques. Tick­ets will also be avail­able at the ven­ue before the concert.