Speranza Scappucci leads a program of excellence. Concerts and great international performers with free access
What does Harmonia mean today?
This is the question that runs through the twentieth edition of MITO, dedicated toHarmonya multifaceted concept and philosophical principle, which manifests itself in various forms: from the technical dimension of the research of sounds and visual arts to the psychology of well-being, up to the collective dimension, between classical heritage and social peace. There are places where theHarmony it is not just memory, but becomes a way to cross time, question the present and recover the bonds created. This is the case of Milan and Turin, cities united by a musical history that continues to renew itself. Just think of the numerous voices celebrated in this year’s programme: from Giovanni Battista Sammartini, father of symphonism, to Ludovico Einaudi, minimalist pianist, up to Roberto Cacciapaglia, pioneer of the fusion between acoustic and electronic music, born in Milan; or to Gaetano Pugnani, historic first violin of the Teatro Regio, to Alfredo Casella, great composer of the twentieth century, and to Nicola Campogrande, contemporary composer, born in Turin.
The concept of Harmonia continues to reveal today that complexity is not resolved by destroying differences, but by finding a dynamic principle capable of connecting them. And perhaps it is precisely in his research that our tiredness towards disorder and separation manifests itself. From this perspective, MITO takes on the contours of a poetic manifesto that escapes definitions: visionary and musical, it builds a language in which passage, memory and dream coincide with an incessant questioning of truth. The festival thus does not limit itself to representing the musical world, but opens spaces to cross and explore without borders.
The curatorship and artistic direction are signed, for the first time, by the famous orchestra director Speranza Scappucci, marking a new chapter for the historic festival that unites the cities of Milan and Turin. Emblematic is the choice to inaugurate the festival on 6 September at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan and on 7 September at the Rai Auditorium in Turin, with the monumental and pacifist War Requiem by Benjamin Britten, directed by Maestro Simone Young, one of the leading figures in the panorama of classical music and international opera, as well as a great interpreter of the late-romantic and Wagnerian repertoire. Britten’s masterpiece reveals Harmonia through three fundamental dimensions: formal, geopolitical and musical. It is an extraordinary architectural operation, in which the Latin liturgical text of the Missa pro defunctis and the poems of Wilfred Owen, a young British poet who died in the trenches during the First World War, describe with raw realism the horror, the mud and the pity of war. The poetic climax of the work is reached in the final movement, “Libera me”, where Owen imagines the meeting in the afterlife between the two enemy soldiers who killed each other. In that moment, the vocal lines intertwine, the three orchestras merge and the musical harmony becomes total on the text Let us sleep now – Let us sleep now.
It is not the harmony of victory, but that of mercy, the only force capable of recomposing the chaos of human destruction. The entire festival program is developed along this same line, built around encounters and dialogue. From the generational synthesis of Gioachino Rossini’s Stabat Mater, directed by M°Serena Scappucci (16 September: Milan, Church of San Barnaba in Gratosoglio; 17 September: Turin, Church of San Filippo Neri), to the great symphonic groups and contemporary music with M°Riccardo Chailly and the Filarmonica della Scala (8 September: Turin, Auditorium Giovanni Agnelli – Lingotto); from the commission to Paola Prestini, KAOS, entrusted to the concertation of M°Michele Mariotti at the helm of the Rai National Symphony Orchestra (12 September: Turin, Auditorium Rai Arturo Toscanini; 13 September: Milan, Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi), up to the Bamberger Symphoniker with M°Jakub Hrůša (19 September: Milan, Teatro Dal Verme; 20 September: Turin, Auditorium Giovanni Agnelli – Lingotto).
Among the flagship events of MITO there is also Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, which sees the legendary master of the baroque M°William Christie and Les Arts Florissants grappling with the myth of Orpheus. Once again, music becomes a force capable of crossing the darkness and leading back towards a universal balance. Entry is free, with reservations recommended on the event website. More than celebrating geometric balance, MITO therefore proposes an idea of culture as an exercise in dialogue. In a time dominated by acceleration, returning to Harmonia means recognizing a space of resistance of thought, where the word or the sound do not simplify reality, but preserve its complexity. And this is perhaps the deepest reason why his voice is not a nostalgic chorus of the past, but a springing and rebellious echo, capable of digging a fertile silence in the din of the world and of reminding us, between the cracks of the present, how to be human again.
