Donde hay música no puede haber cosa mala (Cervantes, Don Quijote) is the title of the XXXVI edition of the RAVENNA FESTIVAL, which returns with its rich programme of events including music, dance and theatre from 31st May to 13th July 2025.
“Where there is music there can be no evil“, declares Sancho Panza, the most famous squire in world literature. And if these words well reflect the spirit of the Ravenna Festival, the quotation from Don Quixote also offers an opportunity to reflect on courage and the transformation of this value, from the epic tradition to Cervantes’ knight-errant, up to the meaning that heroism can take on in our times: civil and spiritual courage, the courage to begin again, to create and hope.
This contemporary courage, which does not wield swords but ideas, empathy and hope, is the focus of this edition of the Ravenna Festival.
After the opening on 31st May with Riccardo Muti and the Cherubini Orchestra, together with the violinist Giuseppe Gibboni, the festival’s narrative will feature two exceptional conductors Zubin Mehta and Daniel Harding, respectively with the Orchestras of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, while Accademia Bizantina and Alessandro Tampieri will sign an evening dedicated to Vivaldi.
Among the many guests: Cat Power, Max Richter, Pietro Fresa, Alexander Gadjiev and many other artists.
There will also be many theatre titles, starting with the Bhagavadgītā of the Grande Teatro in Lido Adriano, which has chosen the sacred indian text as the starting point for this show; the third and last adventure of Don Chisciotte ad ardere, a project by Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari of Teatro delle Albe/Ravenna Teatro and Marco Baliani, who brings Del coraggio silenzioso to the stage of the Teatro Alighieri.
Not to be missed is the special review Romagna in fiore, hosted in some of the places affected by the 2023 flood in Romagna, with afternoon concerts without large stages and artificial lights in places of great naturalistic interest.
In the Jubilee year, the city basilicas, including the Byzantine ones that are Unesco World Heritage Sites, host tributes to Palestrina by the Tallis Scholars and the Odhecaton, as well as a sacred performance on the biblical figure of Rut.
There is no shortage of “out-of-town” events in Cervia-Milano Marittima with Dardust, Alessio Boni and Carlo Lucarelli; at the Pavaglione in Lugo with Enrico Rava & Stefano Bollani, Malika Ayane with the Orchestra La Corelli and Uri Caine, and at Palazzo S. Giacomo in Russi with The Long Irish Night and The Night of Spiritual Jazz.
