Author:
Sergievsky Alexander Topics: Culture
01.02.2007
Rome has a reputation as the ‘patriarch’ of European capital cities for its ability to promote and popularize culture.
Its pre-eminence rests to a large extent on the quality and diversity of its
art. Not only do its galleries and museums have outstanding collections on
permanent display; these are supplemented by temporary exhibitions devoted to
the life and works of individual artists from Italy and abroad. The year 2006
was no exception as it was marked by a series of first class exhibitions,
beginning with the most significant, which featured classical Italian
masterpieces from the Renaissance period. Exhibitions of works by Antonello da
Messina were on display from the 18th of March to the 25th of June 2006 and
those of Raffaello Santi (Raphael) from the 19th of May to the 10th of
September 2006.
They shared a common denominator, in that they followed a pattern that has been
increasingly used by curators over the last few years.
The works of a given artist are featured as the central focus of an exhibition.
These are then
“framed” within the exhibition space by works of other artists who are connected with
the main protagonist
– in style, spirit, time or direction. This provides a perspective on the
creativity of the main artist, giving greater understanding of his outlook and
the formal qualities of all the works on display.
This model was used for the largest sole retrospective of the last few decades – the exhibition of the Sicilian master Messina at Le Scuderie del Quirinale, the
former papal stables which were converted several years ago into a prestigious
complex of exhibition halls, opposite the Presidential palace on the Quirinale
Hill.
This exhibition in Rome was one of the most interesting representations of the
Venetian school
– which exported across the Apennines a number of stylistic and technical
features from paintings of the Northern Renaissance. This theme became a
significant feature of international exhibitions during 2006.
The success of this exhibition was shared by a display of canvases from Raphael’s Florentine period (1505 to 1508), which was presented in the halls of the
Galleria Borghese and surrounded by canvases of his contemporaries. There were
60 paintings in total, drawn from many international museums, some of which
have never been exhibited in Italy before.
The same approach was used for the retrospective exhibition of one of the
greatest Italian painters of the second half of the 20th century, Alberto
Burri, who was a colourful member of the Abstract Expressionist movement. The
exhibition of his works occupied the halls of the Scuderie del Quirinale until
the 16th of February 2006, a date chosen to coincide with the 10th anniversary
of the artist
’s death. The exhibition included more than 80 works by Burri himself and others by his
contemporaries.
Other exhibitions on display were just as interesting even though they did not
adopt the curatorial approach described above. More traditional methods are
applied in the Complesso Vittoriano (housed in the monument to Vittorio
Emmanuele) in the Piazza Venezia. A part of this national memorial has
successfully served as an extremely convenient repository for many prestigious
art exhibitions over the years.
It is worth mentioning two of the most successful: from February to August 2006,
Modigliani (dozens of works tracing the painter
’s entire artistic career); from October 2006 to February 2007, a “paired” retrospective of Matisse and Bonnard: over 200 paintings, drawings, sculptures
and documentary material comprehensively covering the life and creative output
of the two post-Impressionists and their friends.
There were also works by Klee drawn from collections in Paris, Berlin, and New
York in the galleries of Palazzo Ruspoli from
October 2006 until January 2007 and 80 collected works by Andy Warhol in the
Galleria Bramante from October 2006 to January 2007, which celebrated the
gallery
’s first 10 years of activity. Co-incidentally, it was an exhibition of Warhol
that originally opened the gallery.
For six months, from April to October 2006, the preserved antiquity the
Hadrianeum (Hadrian
’s Mausoleum) on the banks of the Tiber, was occupied by a “Baroque Rome” exhibition which featured more than a hundred sculptures, paintings, drawings,
sketches and drafts by the masters of Roman baroque: Gianlorenzo Bernini,
Francesco Borromini and Pietro da Cartona.
Between April and July a sequence of three brief exhibitions each featured just
one painting:
the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica in Palazzo Barberini took delivery, from Amsterdam, of the “Love Letter” by the Dutch genius Vermeer. Secondly, the Pallavicini family Palace opened its
doors for a few days to anyone interested in viewing the Rubens masterpiece
“Christ and the Twelve Apostles,” and thirdly, the Odeskalki knights did the same at their own residence, for
viewing of the
“Conversion of Saul” by the inimitable Caravaggio.
Besides this, the Complesso Vittoriano took delivery (mainly from French museums
and collections) of works by my favourite, Claude Monet. The exhibition opened
in the autumn of 2005 and lasted until the end of January 2007. The Museo del
Corso showcased masterpieces from New York
’s Guggenheim Museum, and featured 90 sculptures and “objects” in bronze, marble, wood, glass, plastic, silver, clay and gold by Umberto
Mastroianni (uncle of the great Marcello).
During the final months of September 2006, the halls of the Scuderie del
Quirinale were taken over by an exhibition on
“China: Birth of Empire”. Over 400 exhibits were sourced from 14 Chinese museums, many of which have
never been seen outside China before.
The majority of the objects date back several thousand years and you could see
terracotta figures of infantrymen and cavalrymen, some particularly outstanding
for being life size. They lay undiscovered until the end of the 20th Century
when they were brought to light during excavations of underground burials of
Chinese emperors and military leaders from the First Emperor period, the Qin
dynasty of the 3rd century BC.
The year would not be complete without photographic art. The previously
mentioned prestigious
Scuderie del Quirinale selected 61 photographs of the feted film-meister Wim
Wenders, shot by him through 20 years of world-wide film-making, with some
exhibits five metres in length. The more modest Galleria Bramante exhibited
unpublished photographic works and photo portraits by one of the great
photographers of the 20th Century, Henri Cartier-Bresson, known to his
contemporaries as the
“Eye of the Century”. The images were a spellbinding revelation, particularly as all the unpublished
works had been shot by him in Rome.
Photographs accounted for only a small part of an exhibition displayed in the
halls of the Museum of Rome in Trastevere, which commemorated the 30th
anniversary of the death of one of the greatest cult figures among Italian
film-masters, Paolo Pasolini. A rebel in life, as well as in art
– in cinema, in literature, in journalism – Pasolini left an indelible trace everywhere he lived and worked. There is a
large body of documentary evidence to support this and the exhibition in
Trastevere was yet another superlative affirmation of his works.
His films, naturally, were shown during the exhibition. Likewise, film shows
inevitably played a part at celebrations in Rome of the life and works of two
other great characters of Italian cinema, Roberto Rossellini and Marcello
Mastroianni. They celebrated the centenary of the birth of the former, while
2006 marked a decade since the death of Mastroianni.
I recall from that time multi-page supplements in all the main newspapers, films
and broadcasts on all TV channels, and the tearful faces of people in a
never-ending queue to the Municipality of Rome on the Capitoline Hill, waiting
for hours to file past the coffin of the great actor.
Cinema, in general, reigned in Rome during a series of film festivals. The city hosted five through the summer and autumn months. Four of them
displayed the diverse range of film-production within the framework of the
annual cultural programme titled
“Roman summer.” The fifth, which deserves special mention, is a new official international film
festival which, in the opinion of the city authorities, should become a serious
competitor to the well-known Venice International Film Festival.
Some believe a Rome film festival could dramatically change the character of
such events which have turned into essentially
“elitist” shows, with no access for a wider, less “well-heeled” audience. It is true that in Venice, and especially in Cannes, prices for any service sky
rocket during the film festivals, with the number of seats on sale being
limited and entry to post-viewing talks requiring a special permit.
In Rome everything was, much more widely accessible “and so it will continue to be” declared Rome’s Mayor, Walter Veltroni, himself a recognized cineaste. Viewings took place in
the Auditorium, the largest concert hall complex in the capital, and in a
number of the more spacious cinemas. Ticket prices were not unduly high and the
performers and film-makers often appeared to the audience immediately after the
viewings.
The events were also well publicized.
Sceptics say all this may well be true, but whether the new “enterprise” can become a worthy competitor to the cult event in Venice, especially as the
festival in Rome immediately follows it in
October (13th to 21st ), it is too early to say. It seems reasonable to trial a Roman festival to see whether it finds general
acceptance. Only then will it be possible to pass judgment on its success or
failure.
The 2006 “Roman summer” programme came to a triumphant conclusion. Traditionally, it features, in the
hot July and August evenings, regular performances by the Teatro dell
’Opera (Rome Opera House) in the Baths of Caracalla. For more than 70 years,
since the early 1930
’s, a summer season of opera has been staged in the open-air, among the majestic
ruins of these ancient baths. Each performance is an unforgettable event. A
surprise innovation since last season, was the use of computer-generated
“virtual” scenery for Verdi’s “Aida”, Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly” and “Turandot” and a number of other operas.
Musical events in the capital throughout the year were not limited to the
classics. There were plenty of first class events in the fields of pop, jazz
and rock music too. Among them, concerts by the tireless Madonna in August at
the Olympic stadium and Bob Dylan, who broke a lengthy spell of silence one
year ago, in the Main hall of the Roman
“Auditorium” on 3rd July 2006, through to double acts by international rock stars like Billy
Joel and Bryan Adams in the arena of the Roman Colosseum on the 31st of July
2006. In recent years internationally known stars have been allowed to perform
there only once a year.
This great privilege has, in the past, been granted only to Sir Paul McCartney
and Paul Simon.
Well-known rock star Bruce Springsteen, after a year’s absence, appeared in Rome to present his latest album “We shall overcome,” and the most respected saxophone player on the world jazz scene, forever
youthful Sonny Rollins, played at the Auditorium on the 10th of May 2006 during
his European tour. Not to mention the traditional Rome jazz-festival with
dozens of local and visiting musicians performing during the summer months in
jazz-clubs, parks and other venues under the starry night skies of the Eternal
city.
If serious music in the past year came mostly from the works of Russian
composers, on the theatre boards of the Italian capital the spirit, texts and
characters of the great William Shakespeare reigned supreme. The theatre-goers
of Rome were presented with eight complete productions of his plays over the
course of the year. In April 2006, the genius bard of Avon would have been 441
years old. This somewhat odd figure was used to number performances at four
theatres and fourteen films, produced in different years by different
directors: from
“Falstaff” by Orson Welles to a relatively recent “Merchant of Venice” by Al Pacino. The Shakespearean festival was a resounding success, especially
as a number of performances took place on the stage of a recently recreated
Globe Theatre in the park of the Villa Borghese, an exact copy of the wooden
building of Shakespeare
’s theatre in London.
Outside the range of events from the cultural world were two first-rate
international sports events.
The month of May sees both the tennis tournament on the courts of the Olympic
stadium in Rome, and the spring dressage competitions, staged annually in the
parklands of the Villa Borghese.
A review theme of special significance to me during the last year was the
presence at cultural events in the Italian capital of Russian art and Russian
performers.
A few words about the 2006 “Russian season” in Rome. It turned out to be extremely varied in the number and type of
participants, the multitude of genres and productions, and the quality of what
could be seen and heard. We experienced music and films, fine art and ballet,
exhibitions, scientific conferences and even practical workshops.
Let us begin with cinema, the most popular art genre. Alas Rome cannot brag
about its attention to Russian cinema. In the cinemas of the Italian capital
and other cities, screenings of Russian films are quite a rarity. Those shown
are mainly winners from the international film festivals, especially Venice, or
films from Nikita Mikhalkov who has established strong links with local film
distributors. These have not until now amounted to much, although there has
been a notable change in screenings during the last few years.
The New Russian Cinema Festival, an annual event held under the initiative of
the Russian Cultural Fund (Mikhalkov again) is attempting to alter this
situation. This event features several relatively
“fresh” works in different genres by domestic cinematographers. From the 8th to the
12th of October 2006, the
“Trevi” cinema, which has traditionally offered space for screenings of Russian films,
screened new works by Vladimir Hotinenko, a documentary film
“Pilgrimage to the Eternal City,” a feature film “Dot, Dot, Comma” by Andrei Eshpai, and a film-opera “Norma” by Boris Airapetian. As they say; “good things come in small packages”.
As far as music is concerned, 2006 in Rome can undoubtedly be considered the
season of Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich, as their compositions were performed
far more often than music by any other composer. The capital
’s Teatro dell’Opera opened its homage with “Sleeping Beauty” in May, then in October, showed “Swan Lake,” and finished with the “Nutcracker” in December. This last staging brought us the essence of Russian ballet, as the
director was Galina Samsova and the principal dancers were Irina Dvorovenko and
Maxim Belotserkovsky.
The music of Dmitry Shostakovich, the greatest master of the 20th Century, could
be heard in the capital no less often.
His centenary was celebrated last year by music lovers all over the world. Concerts in two of the most prestigious halls in Rome call for special mention.
April became a month of Shostakovich at the same Teatro dell
’Opera, where for three successive evenings, the composer’s music for Shakespeare’s tragedy “King Lear” was performed. A further three evenings were devoted to romances based on the
verses of Blok and Tsvetaeva.
A month earlier, on the 4th, 7th and 8th of March 2006, under the vaulted
ceiling of Rome
’s largest concert and theatre venue, the “Auditorium” (the Parco della Musica), the Rome Philharmonic Orchestra was conducted by the
inimitable Mstislav Rostropovich. Shostakovich
’s 8th Symphony and Concerto for Piano, Horn and Orchestra were performed on all
three evenings with Michael Rudy and Andrea Lukki as the soloists.
At the end of the concert, on each of these three evenings, the 80 year-old
maestro walked around the orchestra and personally thanked each musician. This
is not something you will often see, especially delivered by such a master as
Rostropovich, and, considering that the Roman ensemble is not listed among the
world
’s leading symphony orchestras. But it is a general rule, that the great artist
and great human being exhibits greatness in all things, even the most ordinary.
On a few occasions, works by both Russian composers were performed within the
framework of a single concert.
On the 3rd of May 2006, they were played by the orchestra of the National
Academy of Santa Cecilia conducted by Mikhail Pletnev, and on the 20th of May
2006 by the regional Veneto Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Vladimir
Ashkenazy. They were also paired on the 19th of October 2006, by the Russian
National Orchestra with V. Urovsky conducting.
The autumn-winter music season at the Main Hall of the University of Rome, “La Sapienza” opened on the 21st of October 2006 with the “Moscow Virtuosi.” The main part of the programme consisted of works by Tchaikovsky, and Vladimir
Spivakov
– the latter appearing that evening as both soloist and conductor. At the end of
the year. as a kind of original literary
“add-on” to Shostakovich’s music, the presentation took place of the translation of the book “Shostakovich and Stalin” by the well-known musicologist and publicist Solomon Volkov
Apart from the Tchaikovsky ballets, the Roman public saw, in April, Stravinsky’s “Firebird,” with Mikhail Fokine’s choreography “reconstructed” by Andris Liepa, and in October, “Cinderella” by Prokofiev. Both productions were from the repertoire of the Rome Opera
House.
As far as exhibitions are concerned, Rome was the first among Western European
cities to become acquainted with a unique presentation of Russian wooden
sculptures.
It was brought from Russia under the auspices of the International Fund for
Humanitarian Development,
“Tolerance.” On the 12th of July 2006, the Capitoline museums put on display 57 of the
rarest exhibits, illustrating the skills of Russian carvers from earliest times
up to the 19th Century. Exhibits were made available from the collections of
leading Russian museums, in particular, the Tretyakov Gallery, Rublevsky and
the Kremlin Museum. The exhibition was honoured by the patronage of the
President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano. It remained open until the end of
October, right up to the timely arrival of another rare exhibition in the halls
of the National Library of Rome. This was the opening, for the very first time,
of a display of Russian books and other documentary materials from the Library
’s archives.
As the largest library in the country, Rome’s National Library has the most extensive collection of Russian books in Italy,
with more than 60 thousand volumes. At the heart of the collection are books
transferred here from the so-called
“Gogol’s Library,” the first to collect Russian language editions of books, and founded by the
Russian diaspora of Rome at the beginning of the last century. Other sources
are the library of the Italy-USSR Association, where books and printed
materials of the Soviet period are collected and private collections of leading
Italian slavophiles
– Lo Gato, Mavera, Colluchi and T. Napolitano. The exhibition finished on the 5th
of January 2007. During this time, within the framework of some of the
complementary events held by the organizers, an evening of modern Russian and
Italian poetry took place where Moscow poetess Olga Sedakova read her verses.
Another rare exhibition from the 12th to the 20th of December 2006 was opened in
the previously mentioned Corso Museum. Following a successful run in February
at the headquarters of the United Nations, an exhibition
“The Church and the spiritual revival of Russia” arrived in Rome. The core of the exhibition, organized by the Department of
External Church Relations and the Publishing Council of the Moscow Patriarchy,
consisted of photographic materials, church service objects and examples of
church art. A special section was devoted to
“confirmations” of the presence of Russian Orthodoxy in Rome. Among these a prominent place was
taken by a collection of Russian icons provided by Madame Adzaro Marino, who
heads Association
“Sophia”, and by Professor John Lindsay.
On the whole, relatively few Russian creative artists visited the Eternal City
in 2006. Dm. A. Prigov came as a painter to present his works in a showroom of
the University of Rome. The writer Mikhail Shishkin came for a particular
literary occasion linked to the publication by Rome-based publishing house
Voland, of his novel
“Venus’s Hair”. However, the ranks of Russian writers in Rome have grown. Among those sighted at
literary readings in the capital were, apart from Shishkin who was invited
again, A.Kabakov, A.Volos and L. Ulitskaja. Presentations of books by Russian
authors started, in fact, at the beginning of the year when in Rome
’s venerable “Antico Caffè Greco,” near the foot of the Spanish Steps, journalist and Pushkin scholar, Alexei
Bukalov presented to assembled fellow countrymen and local slavophiles his new
book
“Pushkin’s Africa”.
And still, despite the rarity of the Russian language in Rome, the number and
quality of events linked with it here continues to grow. As proof of that we
can point to the Week of Russian Language and Culture, held in October in
several Italian cities simultaneously. The above mentioned writers came to Rome
mainly in connection with this event. The main brunt of the work, however, fell
naturally enough on the Russian philologists and teachers who held a series of
“open lessons” in the Russian language at a number of Italian universities, in Bologna,
Florence and Verona. Apart from that there were also Russian film shows,
performances by musicians and discussions of domestic cultural events. The
events of the Week in Rome reached a successful conclusion with a great open
reception. Everyone present spoke only in Russian, naturally. I only heard
reports of it the following day as I was unable to attend. As I could not be
present, I shall allow myself to put a full stop right here and move to the
final section of my report.
A number of noteworthy events took place last year outside the Rome area. Most
notably, the first event from September 2005 to January 2006, in Padua, Verona
and then in Mantua was the most comprehensive exhibition in history of Andrea
Mantegna, native of Padua and a key figure of the early Renaissance. Apart from
the works already housed in these cities, the
“touring” exhibition totalled 60 works of the master brought from over a hundred museums
and private collections throughout the world. The exhibition was linked to the
anniversary, marking the Quincentenary of the artist
’s death. Frescoes, pictures, drawings were created by Mantagna mainly in the
cities of Padua, Verona and Mantua. They are the origin of many of his most
significant works, from murals in the Ovetari Chapel in Padua and the Basilica
di San Zeno Maggiore in Verona, to a succession of works of genius, created by
the master at the Court of the Dukes of Gonzaga in Mantua, where he spent the
last 46 years of his life.
The second major event was the opening in Brussels of a new museum dedicated to
the well-known Belgian surrealist, Ren Magritte. On the eve of the opening,
Belgian representatives of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts and the Magritte Fund
brought a collection of the artist
’s work to the Italian city of Como. The opulent 18th century Villa Olmo, on the
shores of picturesque Lake Como, exhibited 80 works by this leading 20th
century painter for almost four months until the end of July. An accompanying
collection of more than a hundred photographs illustrated the key
“events” in the life of the artist.
“Painting is the visible form that reveals the process of thinking” Magritte used to say. It is unlikely, however, that present inhabitants of
these environs which has lately become a hotspot on the property market, are
aware of that. The shores of Lake Como, are attracting an ever increasing rush
of A-list celebrities from around the world, eager to snap up land and private
residences. Hollywood actors are especially strongly represented.