New York City it is one of the most inspiring cities for artists, businessmen and travellers. Anyone who has a dream in New York can believe they can make it happen. You can be whoever you want on the streets of the city, often feeling both a speck and a special person among eight million others at the same time. But the greatest power that New York City exercises over Italians is that it is able to make us feel at home, because it is one of the cities in the world that speaks our language best.
In the classic setting of the green and pulsating heart of Manhattan - Central Park - the "Opera Italiana is in the Air" concert was held on the evening of July XNUMXnd, organized by Intesa Sanpaolo and now in its second edition. The free event gave the opportunity to enjoy Italian opera. The repertoire, in fact, paid homage to the peninsula and focused on a wonderful series of arias and ensembles: from Verdi's Rigoletto to Traviata, from Rossini's The Barber of Seville to Puccini's operas.
The orchestra was made up of members of the Metropolitan Opera, but also of students from the prestigious institutes of the Manhattan School of Music, Juilliard, NYU, New England Conservatory, New York Youth Symphony and others, directed by maestro Alvise Casellati – president and music director of “Italian Opera in the Air”.
"With its support for 'Opera Italiana is in the Air', Intesa Sanpaolo has chosen to offer the general American public the opportunity to experience the heritage of Italian opera music free of charge". declared Biagio Calabrese, Director of the New York HUB Branch of Intesa Sanpaolo's Corporate & Investment Banking Division.
Guests of honor at the Dani Bedoni-produced event were Paulina Castro, author of a new composition and talented 13-year-old member of the New York Philharmonic's Very Young Composer Program, and Paola Prestini, one of the leading female composers in the world.
The ambitious project of the Intesa Sanpaolo banking group is to promote Italian culture in the world, from fashion to music to art in all its forms, and the cultural exchange between Italy and the United States not only from an economic point of view, but even intellectual. Among the initiatives of the group in the States, it is worth mentioning the loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from April to June 2017 of the famous painting by Caravaggio "The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula" from the Gallerie d'Italia in Naples - one of the Bank museums–.
«Music and culture have always had the power to bring people together, through a universal language that goes beyond time and space; tangible expression of "cultural diplomacy", continued Calabrese.
The exchange is positive sum, also in Italy Intesa Sanpaolo has promoted American art and culture, as in the museum headquarters of the Gallerie d'Italia in Milan where the exhibition "Arte come Rivelazione" is underway, which exhibits masterpieces by artists Americans such as Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Robert Rauschenberg and Christo, part of the Agrati collection, one of the most prestigious collections of contemporary art. The collection consists of 500 works and was created starting from the end of the XNUMXs by Luigi and Peppino Agrati, two industrial exponents of the enlightened Lombard bourgeoisie who maintained direct friendships with overseas artists.
After all, if Frank Sinatra also said it, you can at least give him the benefit of the doubt: “If I can make it there, I'm gonna make it anywhere. It's up to you, New York, New York” and Italian culture definitely confirmed the favors of the predictions.
