“The fate of the whole of Europe is at stake”
For the President, the game is one of the epochal ones. “The fate of the whole of Europe is at stake – he stressed – which finds itself at a crossroads between a regression of its history and its ability to survive the evils of its past, and to overcome them definitively”.
This is why themes such as literature, music and the arts constitute for Mattarella “a common network and richness that must not be lost”. A full-blown appeal to ensure that culture is a driving force and synonymous with peace.
“Culture engine of growth”
That culture which for the President “is an engine of growth and a push towards openness”. Mattarella’s call to culture as a flywheel of peace is the ideal seal for the first day of Procida, the Italian Capital of Culture 2022.
But the curtain of the event had actually been raised a few hours earlier with the first of the five shows scheduled today staged in Calata Porta di Massa, in the port area of Naples. Here the pianist Renata Benvegnù performed various musical genres: from light music to jazz, from the soundtracks of the great cinema to contemporary music, playing a piano suspended in the air, three meters above the ground.
Followed by the other four inaugural day shows, all on the island, with over 200 committed performers. First act of an event that between now and the end of the year includes 44 cultural projects (34 of which are original) and 150 events on the bill with 350 artists from 45 different countries around the world.
The Minister of Cultural Heritage Dario Franceschini is full of satisfaction: «For the first time a capital city does not win but a small community, it is an island that wins, an island that has shown a very simple thing. The beauty of Procida is inside and outside ».