Ukraine, Tigray, the Middle East, Covid, climate change… the list goes on. So many wars on so many fronts, so many of our own dead to commemorate. Which is why performances of a requiem as spiritual and secular, as disturbing and consoling, as specific and universal as Britten’s are so vital in our own times: lest we forget.

Elena Perroni with Asher Fisch and WASO in Britten’s War Requiem. Photo © Linda Dunjey

This magnificent Friday night performance – the first of Britten’s War Requiem by WASO since 1979 – was therefore to be welcomed. Featuring the massed forces of WASO and its chorus, musicians of the Australian National Academy of Music, the TSO Chorus, the Aquinas College Schola Cantorum and three very fine soloists (of which more anon), it also proved a perfect fit for principal conductor Asher Fisch, so well versed is he in the operatic tradition.

Speaking of tradition, the Requiem Mass has a long one. The genre therefore has its own dead to commemorate, and Britten’s War Requiem carries in its bosom composers such as Gilles, Mozart, Cherubini, Berlioz, Brahms, Verdi and others who made such dramatic...