The concert will be the second of three, the first will be in Ravenna on July 7 and the third in Pompeii on July 11, creating a symbolic bridge between the cities.
The theme of the 34th edition of the series will be The Invisible cities, and according to the Ravenna Festival website it seeks to explore
…the common thread of the shared Roman past and its archaeological heritage [which] links two long-buried cities – one by the ashes of Mount Vesuvius, the other by the sands of the desert – to Ravenna, whose port of Classe emperor Augustus chose for his fleet in the eastern Mediterranean.
Jordanians have received thousands of refugees from Syria and elsewhere over the last decade, and it is to this humanity Muti seeks to pay tribute.
Muti will bring together on all three stages the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra, the Cremona Antiqua choir and Jordanian musicians.
They will perform Act II of Orfeo ed Euridice by Gluck with counter tenor Filippo Mineccia, excerpts from Bellini’s Norma with the soprano Monica Conesa and Johannes Brahms’ Das Schicksalslied (The Song of Destiny).
These works will be inter-spaced with moments of music rooted in the Middle East.
There will be an ancient Mesopotamian hymn and songs from the 20th century set to ancient verse by Syrian artists Mirna Kassis and François Razek-Bitar and Jordanian singers Ady Naber and Zain Awad.
During their leg in Jordan the Ravenna Festival musicians will also visit the Za’atari refugee camp, home to tens of thousands of refugees from neighbouring Syria.
They plan to deliver new instruments to musicians living there.
The project is supported by the Culture Ministry and the Foreign Ministry, which, in line with the strategy of strengthening cultural cooperation between Italy and Jordan, will open a new Italian Institute of Culture in Amman.
The Jerash concert has the support of the Italian embassy in Amman and the Emilia-Romagna Region with the collaboration of the Jordan Italian Forum for Cooperation.
ANSA
