Stabat Mater

Rossini’s Stabat Mater is among his most widely loved sacred works. Its Paris premiere on 7 January 1842 was so successful that the score was performed in twenty-nine other European cities before the year had ended. The work continues to move audiences through the intensity of its expression and its unusual aesthetic world, in which operatic eloquence meets the ancient meditation on suffering. Grief is never the final word: within the score’s dramatic contrasts lies an enduring faith that love and beauty can still find their way to the human heart.