In the church of San Francesco, not far from Dante's tomb, one of the imaginative concerts with which this year's Ravenna Festival honors Dante is taking place. An actor declaims verses from Paradiso that deal with the wondrous sounds of music, and the early music ensemble La Fonte Musica is playing compositions from the second half of the fourteenth century: two movements from Guillaume de Machaut's “Messe de Nostre Dame ", Two canons and a Virelai from the sensual Marian chants in the" Llibre Vermell "of the Benedictine monks of Montserrat and other pearls of Ars nova.
The evening ends, how could it be otherwise, with Dante's auratic closing lines about love that moves everything, and the ensemble replies with a jubilant Credo by Antonio Zacara da Teramo.
The interpretation combines scientifically based performance practice with an Italian love of music, the melodic exaltations of this magnificent piece of an ars subtilior are captured in a colorful vocal-instrumental mixed sound that foreshadows the Renaissance.
The power of words and sounds opens Dante's world to today's audience.
Animals in Dante's universe are of great importance
Such concert experiences convey something of the unbroken admiration that Italy has shown to the Sommo Poeta, the highest poet and cultural star of the late Middle Ages, far beyond specialist circles. The Ravenna setting also puts the poet in a historical perspective that goes back to late antiquity. It is said that he was inspired for his Paradiso by the star-studded mosaic skies of the Byzantine sacred buildings.
Animals also live in Dante's universe. The soprano Laura Catrani scoured the texts for animal motifs and had the three composers Fabrizio de Rossi Re, Matteo Franceschini and Alessandro Solbiati write short pieces for them, which she performed in her solo program with a wonderfully agile voice. The writer Tiziano Scarpa contributed reflections from today's point of view, video projections by a visual artist complemented the musical-literary duet to the small multimedia presentation. There is no need for large symphonic forms to make Dante's poetry musically fruitful. Accurately designed miniatures prove to be just as substantial and meaningful in terms of content.
The performance of the Kiev Chamber Choir under the direction of Mykola Hobdych with two new works by Valentin Silvestrov turned out to be a major event. The nine choral movements “In Memoriam”, which are based on the politically intended cycle “Majdan 2014” and close with a memento mori by John Donne, are in the form of a requiem. The ten-part cantata “O luce etterna”, commissioned by the Ravenna Festival, is based on verses from Dante's “Paradiso” translated into Ukrainian and a poem by Taras Shevchenko, the Ukrainian national poet of the nineteenth century. Floating music of overwhelming harmonic purity and restrained ecstasy emerges from delicate threads of melody. The late antique basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe formed an ideal spiritual and architectural resonance space.
The variety of forms of presentation is characteristic of the Ravenna Festival, which extends over two summer months and has a wide range of content.
With a diversified program, it reaches broad sections of the local population, plus many visitors from the region and tourist audiences.
The concerts of the Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini, founded in 2004 by Riccardo Muti and based in Ravenna and Piacenza, which now briefly made a guest appearance in Armenia during the festival, set symphonic accents.
Numerous venues are available in the city, which is blessed with unique historical buildings, for the various scenic and semi-scenic projects and concerts from early music to contemporaries.
Brilliant interpretation
The ruins of a Roman fortress form the atmospheric backdrop for elaborate outdoor productions. The Argentine guest performance of a tango opera by Astor Piazzolla and a dance evening with works by Igor Stravinsky took place here. For the sequence of scenes from works from the Russian period and early neoclassicism, international soloists from New York to Hamburg as well as the dance and choreographer couple Sasha Riva and Simone Repele from Geneva were engaged; the partly reconstructed choreographies came from Michel Fokine, Georges Balanchine and, in the case of the Divertimento from the “Kiss of the Fairy”, from John Neumeier, who was personally present. A Russian-Italian actor with Stravinsky glasses and a matching outfit led the program as the emcee with semi-autobiographical commentaries.The relaxed form of presentation suited the warm summer night and did not detract from the high level of professionalism in dancing.
Davide Dato from the Vienna Opera concluded the spectacular with a solo version of the “Sacre du printemps” choreographed by Uwe Scholz, with the brilliant original four-handed piano version also setting fire to the dancing Parforce number. This ballet evening in particular showed what makes a live presence atmospheric, which artists and audience have had to do without for so long. Something of this can still be felt in the video recordings. They are freely available on the festival website for thirty days.