The Roads of Friendship: Ravenna-Mazara del Vallo

The Roads of Friendship led back to the heart of the Mediterranean. The twelfth musical pilgrimage of the Ravenna Festival sailed from the ancient Roman port of Ravenna to the ancient Phoenician port of Mazara del Vallo in Sicily, which is today home to the largest fleet of fishing vessels in all of Italy. Here, before an audience of over 4000 people, Riccardo Muti led the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino performers through some of the most intense sacred scores of two great Italian composers: Verdi’s Stabat Mater and Te Deum - two of the Four Sacred Pieces - and the wonderful dramatic portrayal that is Rossini’s Stabat Mater. Together with the Orchestra and Choir (conducted by Piero Monti), some of the biggest names in the world of international opera were called in to interpret the work by Rossini: soprano Elaine Alvarez, mezzo-soprano Olga Borodina, tenor Mario Zeffiri and bass Ildar Abdrazakov. The concert was dedicated to Pope John Paul II, a supreme example of a pilgrim and messenger of peace, who always worked for worldwide fellowship, an ideal that fits the community in Mazara like a glove: the city is an exemplary model of integration, with over 7000 Tunisians living in the ancient kasbah in the heart of the old town, who cast their nets alongside those of the Sicilian fishermen every day.