“For more than 20 years the Ravenna Festival’s Roads of Friendship [project] has sent a group of Italian and other European musicians on an annual trip to countries afflicted by war, political unrest, natural disaster, or any number of other hardships,” writes George Loomis in Tuesday’s (7/10) MusicalAmerica.com (subscription required). “Riccardo Muti, whose wife, Christina Mazzavillani Muti, is the festival’s founder and president, assembles and conducts the traveling troupe, which is joined by local musicians for a major, arena-style concert.” The July 1 outdoor concert in Kiev, Ukraine “consisted of the Stabat Mater and the Te Deum from Verdi’s Quattro pezzi sacri, excerpts from Nabucco, and Copland’s Lincoln Portrait…. About half the singers came from the chorus of the National Opera of Ukraine, which also supplied orchestral musicians…. Ukraine today remains engaged in armed conflict near its eastern border with Russia…. Security was tight for the concert, which took place in St. Sophia Square…. An estimated 10,000 people turned out [and] Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko [was] scheduled to speak… Lincoln Portrait … can seem overblown, but in times or places in which democracy is under attack, its message can resonate. With actor John Malkovich articulating Lincoln’s words, it certainly did so here.”
Posted July 13, 2018
