The Roads of Friendship: Ravenna-Tokyo

Whether it aims to relieve wounds inflicted by the war or by the blind fury of nature, whether it strives to appease centuries of misunderstandings or rediscover ancient identities and ties, or again to join the most diverse religious faiths in a symbolic communion, the Roads of Friendship always uncoil under the sign of the expressive force of music, the one and only language able to go beyond words and turn into an instrument, this time, to celebrate 150 years of friendship. In 2016, on the 16th of March, the Bunka Kaikan Theatre offered an extraordinary welcome to Riccardo Muti on the podium of the Cherubini Orchestra and the Harusai Festival Orchestra: not only the tireless, unceasing applause of the audience, but also two stamps issued to commemorate the event. This way the 20th edition of the Roads of Friendship, dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the friendship between Italy and Japan, started from Tokyo with two concerts (the second one at the Metropolitan Theatre on March 17) and then reached the Pala De André in Ravenna, as usual with the same concert featuring the same protagonists. This backward journey paid a merry tribute to the diplomatic relations between the two countries, which started in 1866. At the time the two far-away countries were connected by the silk market, or better by the precious eggs of silkworms that our “semai” would obtain after the longest journey; nowadays the tie is made up of art, culture, and especially music. Hence a programme entirely dedicated to the Italian operistic genius, especially Verdi’s: these most compelling pages have marked the identity and the image of our land and represent a sort of birth language for us Italians, while they are the object of a deep and sincere passion on the Japanese people’s part.