Ravenna-Kyiv
The Roads of Friendship
conductor
Riccardo Muti
narrator
John Malkovich

Orchestra and Choir of the National Opera of Ukraine
Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini
choir master Bogdan Plish

Giuseppe Verdi
“Stabat Mater” and "Te Deum” from Quattro pezzi sacri

Aaron Copland
Lincoln Portrait

Giuseppe Verdi
from Nabucco:
Sinfonia
Chorus “Gli arredi festivi”
Recitativo and aria di Zaccaria “Sperate, o figli!”
Scene and aria of Abigaille “Ben io t’invenni”, “Anch’io dischiuso un giorno”, “Salgo già”
Chorus “Va pensiero”

The answer to one more “call” enriches the geography of the Roads of Friendship project: it comes from the depth of the ancient Slavic universe, from the strip of fertile land lying at the eastern borders of Europe, battered by history but always ready to find new life in its thousand-year-old culture and traditions. Under the baton of Riccardo Muti, “our” musicians join the Ukrainian National Opera Orchestra as well as young artists from remote Mariupol, the theatre of continuing unrest. And thus, Abraham Lincoln’s yearning for justice and equality among peoples, set to music by Copland, meets Verdi’s secular spirituality in a “liturgy” of togetherness through music, which is the key to true freedom.
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