Transforming the soaked wood of the migrants’ boats that landed on Lampedusa into works of violin making (violins, violas, double basses, even a harpsichord of poignant beauty), as the inmates of the Casa dello Spirito and Opera arts laboratory did, is already a miracle. But putting them in the arms of the young musicians of the Cherubini Orchestra, founded and directed by Riccardo Muti, transformed for the occasion into an orchestra of the sea, giving life to an unforgettable eveningbecomes an almost magical event, a reversal of destiny with a high human and civil meaning. Music as inner freedom, capable of flying beyond prison cells.
This is what happened on Saturday 10 January in the theater of the Opera prison, on the outskirts of Milan, renovated for the occasion. The music of Vivaldi and Verdi, conducted by Muti’s baton, resonated through the vaults of the theater, transforming into a moving hymn to life and freedom. «These instruments» commented the maestro before taking the podium «are the work, dedication, sensitivity of people from this place who have learned the art of violin making. Supreme art, if you think of Stradivari, Guarneri, Guadagnini and others who were the great luthiers who created instruments that are highly sought after in the world today.” Unusual instruments, with a musical soul but on the outside with the variegated colors of the boats, fishing boats and fishing boats “that carried people, men, women, children who were trying, certainly the majority of them, were trying to achieve freedom, well-being, democracy and were fleeing from terror, from poverty, from hunger, from disease, from dictatorship”. Thus making wood that has known salt, fear and waiting, death wood that vibrates with life. «It’s a miracle. It’s something that feels miraculous and should be a sign in a world that is falling apart for many reasons.” For Muti those instruments become the symbol of a human counterpoint, «the dialogue of different parts which then tend towards the harmony of all, that is, well-being, that is, beauty. This is music.” The evening was enriched by the poignant testimonies of some inmates and by the San Vittore prison choir directed by maestro Paolo Foschini. «The indications I gave from the point of view of phrasing and expression», commented the conductor «were understood and collected immediately, because sometimes with noble choirs it takes more time because in the noble choir there is always someone who provides passive resistance. Instead they, all of them, sang with affection, with love, with enthusiasm and therefore they understood what I was able to say immediately.” Also participating in this musical happening, organized by Arnoldo Mosca Mondadori, president of the Casa dello Spirito e delle Arti, and the director of the prison Stefania d’Agostino, was the soprano Rosa Feola, one of the stars of the world singing scene. But the most touching moment was the performance by Mirto Milani, a soprano singer who is serving his sentence here at the Opera for a serious crime and who for the occasion began singing again (L’Ave Maria by Charles Gounod) with Muti on the piano. A tearful embrace between the two probably sealed the beginning of a rebirth, because the maestro personally committed himself to continuing the conservatory studies interrupted by the young Mirto. A hug that says more than many words about justice, about the possibility of starting over, about the fact that no life is just what it was. A hug that is worth more than a symphony. Music, real music, does this. It suspends judgement, loosens the chains, makes even a cell less definitive.
«This is a place from which what has been a negative cause, through music and other things, can be transformed and is being transformed into an absolutely positive fact», concluded the maestro.
