The Roads of Friendship: Ravenna-Kiev

A multitude of umbrellas and raincoats greeted the artists on the stage: 10 thousand people waited for a break in the rain, in the large square overlooked by the golden domes of St. Sophia’s Cathedral, for the concert joining the Ukrainian capital city to Ravenna. In the year of the Festival’s tribute to Martin Luther King with the title We Have a Dream, the dream of the Roads of Friendship reached Kyiv, the ancient heart of the slavic world, battered by history but ready to find new life in its thousand-year-old culture. The two cities have thus revived a century-old relationship: united in history through ancient ties to Constantinople, they are both home to World Heritage churches and linked through their dazzling mosaics which have survived centuries of change. Riccardo Muti led his Cherubini Orchestra side by side with the artists of the main opera theatre of the country, the National Opera of Ukraine Taras Shevchenko, together with musicians from the Municipal Orchestra “Renaissance” of Mariupol, the theatre of continuing unrest. Part of the imposing “joined” choir, also artists of the Credo Choir, students of the Tchaikovsky National Music Academy and of the Institute of Music of Mariupol. Award-winning actor John Malkovich was the narrator of the Lincoln Portrait, the orchestral work written by Aaron Copland in 1942 combining music with excerpts concerning the legendary American President; the yearning for justice and equality in Abraham Lincoln’s words met Giuseppe Verdi’s spirituality, as conveyed by the Stabat Mater, Te Deum, Nabucco.