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With the Russian soprano Irina Lungu, the British tenor Allan Clayton and the German baritone Matthias Goerne, a star cast has been found that ties in with the history of the work in a special way: Benjamin Britten composed his War Requiem as a work of mourning and remembrance of the war dead and wanted the soloists to be members of the countries that had previously been enemies in the war. The premiere took place in 1962 in the rebuilt Coventry Cathedral, whose previous building had been destroyed by German bombing. The text was based on the Latin text of the Missa pro Defunctis and poems by Wilfred Owen, one of the most important literary witnesses to the horrors of the First World War.