From Pappano to Rana and Marshall, at the start of the Summer Concerts of Santa Cecilia

“The most important thing is our relationship with the public. Now we need their trust, to have them with us, to share their emotions. We can soon return to normality, to a conscious normality”. The musical director of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Antonio Pappano, launches on the occasion of the presentation of the summer season of the Foundation, in streaming from Berlin, where yesterday at the Staatsoper he conducted the antigeneral of the ‘ Fanciulla del West ‘by Puccini which will be staged on 13 June “for six performances with a small audience, but with the public”. Pappano is among the protagonists of the Santa Cecilia Summer Season which will see Orchestra and Chorus, from 6 July to 29 September, in total safety and according to anti-Covid regulations, performing in six special concerts in the Cavea of ​​the Auditorium Parco della Musica and in the Sala Santa Cecilia in September with great international guests. Alongside the Anglo-Italian master there will be Corrado Augias, Beatrice Rana, Wayne Marshall and Richard Galliano, who will pay homage to Piazzolla in the centenary of his birth and will perform the world premiere of his ‘Les chemins noirs’. Also scheduled are international tours which, after the forced break due to the health emergency, reopen the doors of the world to the Orchestra: the residence in Spoleto from June 27 to July 11, the presence at the Audi Festival in Ingolstadt in Germany, in Siena guests of the Chigiana, in Ascona, in Stresa, in Milan, in Bucharest, in Verona and in Rimini. “A program made up of beautiful things that intertwine music with dance, storytelling, photography for a happy summer, for everyone , who wants to speak to the community “, says the president-superintendent of the Academy, Michele dall’Ongaro. In a video intervention, the mayor of Rome Virginia Raggi recalls that the activity of Santa Cecilia “never stopped thanks to streaming first and then to live concerts, when it was possible to do them. I am proud of the prestige of this Orchestra which this year will return to tour in Italy and abroad “. The first appointment, on 6 July at 9 pm, will be a tribute to Igor Stravinsky, on the 50th anniversary of his death, focused on the intense relationship of love between the great Russian composer and dance. ‘Stravinsky’s Love’, curated by Daniele Cipriani, is a production made with the Carlo Felice Foundation of Genoa for the Nervi Music Ballet Festival 2021 with the patronage of the Igor Stravinsky Foundation of Geneva. The screenplay, based on the writings of the composer himself, is signed by the journalist and writer Vittorio Sabadin and the musical consultancy is by Gaston Fournier-Facio. In the role of Stravinsky, Vladimir Derevianko, former principal dancer of the Moscow Bolshoi. On stage an international cast of musicians, Beatrice Rana, Massimo Spada and Simone Lamsma, and virtuoso dancers such as Sergio Bernal (formerly the National Ballet of Spain), Ashley Bouder (New York City Ballet), Davide Dato (Vienna Opera), Jacopo Bellussi and Alessandro Frola (Ballet of Hamburg), Simone Repele and Sasha Riva (formerly Ballet duGrandThéâtre de Genève). In addition, a new creation by John Neumeier will be presented, ‘Divertimento’, a piece for violin and piano taken from the ballet ‘Le baiser de la fée’ that Stravinsky wrote in homage to Tchaikovsky. Neumeier’s new ballet was created for the two Italian dancers of the Hamburg Ballet, Bellussi and Frola. The costumes are by Anna Biagiotti: that of Pulcinella has been recreated from the original drawing by Pablo Picasso, while those of Petrushka are recreations from the original sketches of Benois. Thursday 15 July at 9 pm, the awaited return of Pappano who will lead the ‘Orchestra of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia in a program dedicated to the great repertoire of the nineteenth century with the Symphony from the’ Nabucco ‘by Giuseppe Verdi and the Symphony n. 7 by Ludwig van Beethoven. At the center of the program is Tchaikovsky’s Concerto for violin and orchestra entrusted to the Russian violinist Ilya Gringolts. On 22 July at 9 pm, images and Sounds of the Amazon will invade the Auditorium Parco della Musica with an extraordinary event which, after the French preview in Rouen in October 2020, is presented in Santa Cecilia as a world premiere and in collaboration with the Maxxi. On the podium Simone Menezes, innovative and brilliant Italian-Brazilian conductor engaged in the performance of pieces written for the Amazon by Heitor Villa-Lobos and Philipp Glass. The concert will be accompanied by the projection of some of Sebastião Salgado’s most significant video-photographic works, whose Amazon exhibition, produced by Maxxi in collaboration with Contrasto and curated by Lélia Wanick-Salgado, will be presented as an Italian preview at the Maxxi in Rome from 1 October to 13 February next. “The dream from which this project started was to put in communication the music of Villa-Lobos composed for the Amazon with the photographs of the Amazon. In Rome we will see the fulfillment of this dream”, says Salgado in streaming, explaining that ” this event will also mark a step forward in the development of the concept of environmentalism towards the Amazon forest, which has unfortunately been a victim of human exploitation for many years “. Furthermore, the evening of 22 July “has a special value – observes the president of Maxxi, Giovanna Melandri – because it marks the collaboration between different institutions in a union of forces that mixes different audiences, bringing that of art to music and vice versa”. July 29 at 9 pm, Wayne Marshall returns to the podium of the Orchestra and Choir of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia as director and pianist for ‘A Gershwin night’, a concert entirely dedicated to George Gershwin. On stage also soprano Jeanine De Bique and baritone Simon Shibambu. On 6 August at 9 pm, appointment with the music that marked the story: ‘The songs that made Italy’, the title of an evening that not only evokes patriotic suggestions, but becomes a journey full of meaning and reflection thanks to texts written and narrated by Corrado Augias, who will retrace the chronology of important chapters with passages such as the Prayer from the Rossinian Mosè, ‘Donna Caritea’ by Mercadante, ‘Addio mia bella addio’, ‘La bella Gigogin’, ‘Inno di Garibaldi’, ‘Totonno’, ‘O Surdato’ nnammurato ‘,’ Quel bazzolin di fiori ‘,’ Inno di Mameli ‘, to name but a few. A concert that was presented in 2011 on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy and which is re-proposed by a group of about 250 musicians: Orchestra, Chorus and White Voices of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia accompanied by the Fanfare of the Association Nazionale dei Bersaglieri all directed by Carlo Rizzari. Upon returning from holidays and in the month with the fullest touring, the Archi and the Choir of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia return to the Sala Santa Cecilia, Wednesday 29 September at 9 pm, to pay homage to Astor Piazzolla, on the centenary of the birth of the Argentine composer. On stage Richard Galliano, one of the most important virtuosos of his generation and the greatest interpreter of Piazzolla. The Carte Blanche à Richard Galliano program, in addition to the homage to the Argentine composer with the performance of his most famous pieces, includes the performance of the world premiere in the orchestral version of ‘Les chemins noirs’ (The dark paths), an inspired oratorio to the literary work of René Frégni with original music by Richard Galliano on a libretto by Francine Couturier. The production is made in collaboration with Le Seine Musicale-Paris, the Romaeuropa Festival 2021 and the Argentine Embassy. “I connect to what was said by maestro Pappano who invited the public to return to attend these places in the awareness that thanks to vaccines and to the vaccination campaign, this year we are better than last year “, says Albino Ruberti, Head of Cabinet of the Lazio Region, announcing that on Monday the president Nicola Zingaretti will sign an ordinance to bring the maximum limit of spectators from 1,000 to 1,500 outdoor events, such as the Auditorium Cavea. “There are all the conditions to live this season, doing it in compliance with all health safety measures. And in this the Academy of Santa Cecilia is at the forefront”, he concludes.