milan
Roaring applause erupted when a stringed instrument made on a migrant ship made its debut at Italy’s prestigious La Scala Opera House in honor of those who died trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.
The colorful “violins of the sea” were made by prisoners from a rickety boat that washed ashore on the small Italian island of Lampedusa, the first port of call for many crossing from North Africa.
The debut of the “Orchestra of the Sea” with instruments specially assembled for the occasion clearly impressed the audience.
Two of the violin makers are inmates at a high-security opera prison near Milan and watched Monday’s performances of Bach and Vivaldi from the theater’s Royal Box, usually reserved for state officials.
“It’s like magic to be invited to La Scala with something we made,” said the 42-year-old, one of four apprentice luthiers at the prison, who is serving a life sentence for two murders. said Claudio, who was 20 years old.
Cracked, diesel-soaked wood from immigrant ships bound for scrapyards has been turned into violins, violas and cellos.
“We give voice to everything that would normally be thrown away: shredded boat wood, migrants fleeing war and poverty who are treated like trash, prisoners of war who are never given a second chance.” says Arnoldo Mosca Mondadori. The person who came up with the idea.
Mosca Mondadori, president of the House of the Spirits and the Arts Foundation, said the stringed instrument will be used in other concert halls in Europe to “touch the souls of people facing poverty.” I hope it will be played.
The Central Mediterranean is the deadliest migration route in the world. Nearly 2,498 people died or went missing along the river last year, an increase of about 75% from 2022.
In the courtyard of the Opera prison, dilapidated boats are scattered on the grass, surrounded by broken wooden planks.
Pink and white baby shoes, baby bottles, diapers and a small green T-shirt were recovered from the ship’s hold.
Discarded clothing hardened by salt, rusting sardine tins, and primitive life jackets recall a perilous journey at the mercy of rough seas.
“You can smell the ocean here,” inmate Andrea, 49, said inside the gray concrete walls of the courtyard.
“It’s very powerful and will carry you far. To a lesser extent, it’s also present in musical instruments,” he says as he dismantles a boat and searches for suitable wood to make instruments. Masu.
Andrea, who is serving a life sentence for murder, sees her time in the woodshop as a form of “atonement.”
“Time does not pass in prison, but there we feel alive and useful,” he said.
In a small, dark room with barred windows, Nicolae, a 41-year-old Romanian who has been in prison since 2013, is busy sawing wood.
He takes measurements before carefully carving the violin’s soundboard.
“By making violins…I feel like I’ve been reborn,” he said.
Wall panels are lined with fruit blades, penknives, chisels, saws and small wood planes, all possible weapons and carefully checked in by guards at the end of the day.
Master luthier Enrico Arorto, standing at his workbench, said he used a 16th-century method when bending the wood to keep the boat varnish intact.
No Stradivarius here. These violins, he says, “have a more subdued tone, but are appealing and reproduce a full range of notes.”
“They evoke emotions in the musicians, and the musicians convey them to the public.”