The ‘Italian evenings’ organized by the Italian Cultural Institute of Moscow are a series of events that associate image, word and sound, dedicated to Italy, its literature, its music and its painting, a source of inspiration for artists from all over the world. It is a series of five original performances, throughout 2021, which bring together different elements: exhibitions, lectures and concerts.
The ‘key’ element of each evening’s programme will be bibliographic rarities belonging to the collections of the Russian State Library, relating to the 15th-19th centuries: handwritten or printed literary texts, collections of engravings, drawings, and geographical maps. Each work or set of works will define the theme of the evening, summarized in the name of a famous figure of Italian artistic culture, or connected to it: Giovanni Boccaccio, Ludovico Ariosto, Giacomo Casanova, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Thomas de Thomon.
The bibliographic exhibition will be the starting point for an exhibition in the form of a story interspersed with the musical performances, in the genre of the ‘imaginary museum’. The ‘Imaginarium’ solo ensemble, directed by Denis Golubev, will perform music by composers from the Florentine Camerata, Claudio Monteverdi, Solomon Rossi, Antonio Vivaldi, Georg Friedrich Händel, Johann Adolf Hasse, and Russian composers.
Arkady Ippolitov, art historian, writer, curator at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, curator of the 15th-19th century Italian engraving sector, and author of a number of books on Italy, will guide viewers into the world of Italian art. His stories, which will be accompanied by the video projection of paintings and graphic masterpieces, will help the public understand the connection between music and visual images of different eras, and to get closer to understanding the hidden meaning of art.
Calendar of events:
- 26 March – Boccaccio
- 29 April – Ariosto
- 27 May – Piranesi
- 21 October – Images of Italy
- 25 November – Casanova
For more information, please visit iicmosca.esteri.it
