Inmates at Milan's biggest prison have breathed new life into the remnants of Europe's deadly migration crisis.
advertisementWhen Orchestra of the Sea made its debut at Milan's famous La Scala, violins, violas, and cellos carried a story of despair and redemption.
Inmates at Milan's biggest prison bend, carve and gouge wood into musical instruments from battered boats used by smugglers to bring migrants to Italy.
The project, named “Metamorphosis,'' focuses on the principle of rehabilitation, turning things that could otherwise be discarded into something of value to society. Rotten wood becomes high-end musical instruments, and inmates become craftsmen.
This Monday, two prisoners were given time off to watch the Sea Orchestra's debut concert. At the concert, 14 stringed instruments made in the prison played a program that included works by Bach and Vivaldi.
The two prisoners were seated in the Royal Box alongside Milan's mayor, Giuseppe Sala.
“I feel like Cinderella,” inmate Claudio Ramponi said. “This morning I woke up in an ugly, dark place. Now I'm here.”
Far from the stately La Scala Opera House, the Opera Prison on the southern edge of Milan is home to more than 1,400 inmates, including 101 suspected Mafia members, and is almost completely empty. He is being held under strict conditions in isolation.
Other prisoners, like Nicolae, who joined Lamponi at La Scala, are given more freedom.
Since joining the prison's musical instrument workshop in 2020, Nicolae, who refuses to give his full name and prefers to make light of the charges that landed him in prison 10 years ago, has been making music from crude instruments made from plywood. He graduated to a harmonious instrument and became a master of opera. A violin suitable for the stage of La Scala.
“That's how I started to interact with trees,” Nicolae said recently in a prison workshop filled with rows of chisels, the smell of wood shavings and the faint sound of a jigsaw. And they realized I was handy. ”
He said working with an instrument for four to five hours a day gives him a sense of peace to reflect on “the mistakes I made” and the skills to think about the future. “I'm gaining self-esteem,” he said, “and that's no small thing.”
One of the prison workshop's “graduates” has completed his sentence and is working as a master luthier in another prison in Rome.
“I hope that someday I can recover like this violinist,” Nicolae said.
The boat arrived in Opera in much the same condition as when it was seized, still carrying remnants of the lives of the migrants who have died or gone missing on the treacherous Central Mediterranean crossing since 2014, the United Nations says. It is also a reminder of the 22,870 immigrants living in the country.
A shoulder bag containing diapers, baby bottles and shoes for toddlers sits on one bow, along with canned Tunisian anchovies and tuna and a number of plastic sandals.
Each instrument takes 400 hours to build, from boat disassembly to finished product.
“There is a sweetness that cannot be imagined in these instruments that have traveled across the ocean,'' said cellist Mario Brunello, a member of the Orchestra of the Sea. “They don't have a story to tell. They have hope and a future.”
For the House of Spirit and the Arts Foundation, which was the first to introduce luthier-making workshops in four Italian prisons 10 years ago, the concert at La Scala will be the beginning of a movement to bring Sea Orchestra performances to southern European countries for the first time. I hope that. Northern capitals bear the brunt of immigration and then have the most influence over immigration policy.
advertisement“The beauty is that music transcends all divisions and all ideologies and touches people's hearts and souls, and I hope that music makes people think,” he said, adding, “Politicians need to think about this drama. “There is,” he said.
