In the name of Sancho Panza from pop to mass

Multifaceted and splintered in multiple directions Ravenna Festival confirms itself as an authentic feast of discoveries and surprises, balanced between the past and the future, according to an artistic project ready to satisfy different palates, interweaving languages and art paths. More than one hundred curtain-raisers will be counted, from 31 May to 13 July, and distributed over a programme involving more than one thousand artists. In this invitation to trespass, however, the helm of the journey appears to be kept firmly in the hands of music. Or rather, to music. Strong in a sound pedal that cannot but resonate tangibly here, in the city where Riccardo Muti has always lived and where Cristina Mazzavillani Muti is the soul and honorary president of the event. Even the motto at the top of the playbill for this thirty-sixth edition contributes to reaffirming this. Stolen from Cervantes' Don Quijote, it reads: 'Donde hay música no puede haber cosa mala'. Sancho Panza was certain of this. And we trust it.

So here are the great numbers of the Palazzo De André, four thousand seats, ideal for hosting great orchestras, this year the two flagships of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino with Zubin Mehta and of Santa Cecilia with Daniel Harding, flanked by the increasingly qualified Cherubini, which with Muti will hold two symphonic concerts at the opening and closing of the Festival, of which it remains a fundamental protagonist on other dates too. Suggesting an alternative experience, acoustically, visually and in terms of repertoire, the first three Sundays in June with the sacred In templo Domini, all in the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe and in the Jubilee Year: Messe not to be missed, with authoritative celebrants and first-class singers such as the Tallis Scholars, Paolo Da Col's Ensemble Odhecaton and the Gruppo Vocale Heinrich Schütz, conductor Roberto Bonato. The geography of the playbill still invites to different trajectories: so if until 2 June the appointments of "Romagna in fiore" chase each other, distributed in nine locations outside the walls, from Faenza to Riolo Terme and under the sign of eco-sustainability, for the autumn we return to the centre, to the fortress of the Alighieri Theatre, ready for a new Trilogy. This time it is all about Händel, with Orlando, Alcina, Messiah, entrusted to the winning couple Pier Luigi Pizzi and Ottavio Dantone.