One hundred years after the birth of Pier Paolo Pasolini, the Ravenna Festival’s travels “Between Flesh and Heaven”, starting from Azio Corghi’s composition by the same name for the opening concert with Daniel Harding and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. The words Pasolini used to describe his momentous encounter with Bach’s Violin Sonatas draw a not only musical thread that involves such artists as Giuseppe Gibboni, Accademia Bizantina, Elio Germano. The opposition of human and divine expressed by the title also offers a chance to explore the many facets of the sacred, through the homage to Franco Battiato as well as the events under the mosaic vaults of the Byzantine basilicas – but also the Friendship concerts in the shrines of Lourdes and Loreto, where Riccardo Muti leads Italian and Ukrainian artists; a spontaneous invocation to the Mother, image of all mothers. Because, as Pasolini wrote in Supplication to My Mother: “You are the only one in the world who knows, of my heart, what it has always been, before any other love”. On the other hand, the Autumn Trilogy celebrates secular love with Mozart and Da Ponte’s masterpieces in the productions from the royal palaces of Drottningholm and Versailles.
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After the long deafening silence dictated by the restrictions aimed to control the Covid-19 pandemic, music in Italy restarts from Ravenna: in the Rocca Brancaleone, the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra and soprano Rosa Feola join Riccardo Muti for the first concert with an audience, crowned by the solemn and grandiose “Jupiter” Symphony which lifted Mozart above the troubles of one of his life’s most dramatic times. The 31st edition, reimagined for an unprecedented situation, is also the first to reach tens of thousand spectators around the world. And while Muti and the Cherubini Orchestra also  remember the suffering of the Syrian people with a concert in Paestum, sister-site of ancient Palmyra, Ravenna hosts the Budapest Festival Orchestra led by Iván Fischer, the Mariinsky Orchestra with Valery Gergiev, soloists Beatrice Rana and Mario Brunello for the étoiles of Duets and Solos, the single dance event this year. Faced with the second wave of infections, which again stops the events with an audience, in autumn Muti and the Cherubini perform in the Alighieri Theatre for two streamed concerts promoted around the world thanks to the partnership with the websites of El País, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, and Spring Festival in Tokyo.
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Recalling, half a century after Martin Luther King’s assassination, the title of his famous speech – made on the 28th of August, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington and which has become a symbol of the fight against racism, and a hymn to freedom and equality all around the world – means to continue exploring key-events and icons of the 20th century, in the attempt of soothing the dismay and the anxieties undermining our age. Thus one enters the “veins of America”, keeping in mind to the huge contribution of the States to the culture of the 20th century: the biting roar of the 100 electric guitars, but also Cole Porter’s sophisticated musical Kiss Me, Kate. Without ever losing sight of “our” and ever-surprising Verdi heritage: Macbeth for the 50th anniversary of Riccardo Muti’s first time on the podium of the Maggio Fiorentino, but also the new Autumn Trilogy: Nabucco, Rigoletto, Otello.

Nelson Mandela is at the heart of the route leading to the conquest of freedom, a precious and fundamental right. Hence “Mandela Trilogy” by Cape Town Opera, bringing the South African music tradition on stage. But the longing for freedom strongly transpires from the overwhelming passion of the 100 Cellos as well: led by Giovanni Sollima, they invade the city, drawing the audience to myriad concerts and performances. And, inevitably, to the daily appointments dedicated to “Young artists for Dante”, a few steps away from the Poet’s Tomb, and to the “Vespers at San Vitale”. Then, from the most active Hungarian theatres, a Danubian trilogy pays homage to the operetta: the freedom of lightness.

The L’elisir d’amore and La Bohème were staged not in a theatre but…among the tables of a restaurant, in the irreverent and revolutionary interpretation of the young British company OperaUpClose.
Many events were held to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of World War I, culminating in the concert held at the foot of the Redipuglia memorial monument, a symbol of the pain and memory. The musicians of the nations that suffered the most were led by Riccardo Muti’s baton.

Grand opening with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, on the podium of this extraordinary American group their musical director: Riccardo Muti. But, commemorating Romualdo of Ravenna, the festival’s theme covered the most remote spiritual paths of monasticism, and for an entire week the city was “invaded” by a small community of Tibetan monks from the ancient monastery of Drepung Loseling, and filled with the suggestive sounds of the mandala ritual. And the Roads of Friendship turned into a touching “Brotherhood Concert”, whereby different religious expressions came together.
The first of the Autumn Trilogy was reserved for Verdi: on stage, evening after everning, Traviata, Trovatore and Rigoletto, directed by Cristina Muti.

Tenebrae, video-scenic cantata for recorded voices, ensemble, and live electronics, marked a new commission for composer Adriano Guarnieri (the first had been in 2007 with Pietra di diaspro) directed by Cristina Muti: bold experimentation of the visual and auditory space. But the visionary streak emerged also in Demons, Dostoyevsky’s masterpiece staged by Peter Stein: an unforgettable eleven-hour show.
The first “trekking concert” was created as well, a pathway among pinetrees and glades, archaeology and nature filled with songs, music, and dance.

Wandering, erotic, heretical… the female figure is evoked in all artistic expressions: from the most beloved operatic repertoire, Traviata (directed by Cristina Muti Mazzavillani), to the most superb étoiles of our time, Sylvie Guillaum and Svetlana Zacharova; from “portraits of women” including those outlined by Elena Bucci (the insane hunger of knowing by Juana de la Cruz), and by Ermanna Montanari (the proud Rosvita), to the imaginative encounter between Norma and Medea.
One of the most performed musicals in the world, Cats, thrilled the entire audience at the Palafiera of Forlì.

The edition dedicated to Mozart opened with one of the world’s most prestigious orchestras, the New York Philharmonic: two concerts, on the podium Lorin Maazel and Riccardo Muti. And among the “soloists” who took part in this edition there was the most acute and “intellectual” of pianists, Alfred Brendel, with the pure energetic talent of dancer Roberto Bolle. But, as usual, the “classical” dimension is not enough to describe the Festival: Eugenio Barba, transcultural pioneer, examined the theatre archetypes of all time – Don Giovanni and Hamlet.

Philip Glass, together with musicians from five continents, took inspiration from the stars of Orion, the constellation visible all year round from every part of the planet. And the Festival’s vocation of embracing different cultures and artistic forms took shape in La Galigo by Robert Wilson: the ancient Indonesian poem tells the story of the creation of the earth and the divine mystery was mirrored by the magic of colours and hieratic gesture of sixty extraordinary performers.

In New York’s wounded heart, on the edge of Ground Zero, where the blind terror struck every human certainty, in an absolute and unnatural silence, the notes of Verdi’s Va ‘pensiero resonated: Riccardo Muti led the Chorus of La Scala, the Musicians of Europe United, professors of leading European orchestras, and many members of the New York Philharmonic.
The Roads of Friendships arrived in the States as well, but one of the most emblematic American voices arrived in Ravenna, Bob Dylan.

The new millennium Festival opened with a huge party: bright lights and amazing fireworks lit up the city, sounds and traditions of Romagna intertwined with southern ones, far into the night. This paved the way to a multi-faced programme: from Paisiello’s masterpiece, Nina o sia la pazza per amore, with Muti conducting on the podium of the La Scala complex, to Lou Reed’s memorable concert.

With Pagliacci, Riccardo Muti completed the “verismo” diptych that he had begun a couple of years before with Cavalleria Rusticana. The same extraordinary creative team set the stage with Liliana Cavani as director, Oscar award-winning Gabriella Pescucci, and Dante Ferretti for costumes and scenery. But the Festival also moved toward renewed spirituality, along an unprecedented “via dei canti” (song pathways), from the perfection of the Hilliard Ensemble to the mysterious sounds of the baganna, the Ethiopian harp…searching for the “genius vocis”.

For the first time the Wiener Philharmoniker took their place in the orchestra pit, outside of their own theatre. At the Alighieri they were led by Riccardo Muti for Così fan tutte under the very Neapolitan direction of Roberto de Simone. It was the first stage of the Mozart-Da Ponte trilogy, with Don Giovanni and Nozze di Figaro, that Muti and the Viennese would complete a few years later. But the Festival knew no genre boundaries since Keith Jarrett’s great jazz music rocked the festival.

The collection of great conductors was enriched with new names: Giuseppe Sinopoli, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Seiji Ozawa, Myung-Whun Chung … and of course Riccardo Muti, the “local” conductor, leading a new production of Norma, and shining over the ancient mosaics of Sant’Apollinare in Classe with the expressive, powerful notes of Verdi’s Requiem.

Everything revolved “around Rossini”: the kaleidoscopic musical universe of Rossini was transfused in the hypnotic and compelling choreography of Micha van Hoecke in Adieu à l’Italie. But also in the piano recitals by foremost names in Italian piano music such as Aldo Ciccolini and Maurizio Pollini.

The Ravenna Festival was created, in the name of great music and Dante. Riccardo Muti inaugurated the very first edition, then Pierre Boulez, Carlo Maria Giulini, Lorin Maazel took the stage, while Dante readings were carried out by Paolo Poli and Enrico Maria Salerno. Roman Vlad set the mood for the artistic stance.