Love and Light, Healing and Hope - Andrea Bocelli's 'Music for Hope.'
Andrea Bocelli’s live performance in Milan was a wonderful experience and has gone down a storm across the world.
As Kevin Courtney writes in The Irish Times, ‘the Italian opera singer’s Music for Hope concert from Milan soothed fevered souls across the world.’
Italy has suffered untold tragedy during the coronavirus crisis, and it will take a lot of healing before the scars begin to fade. On Easter Sunday, Andrea Bocelli performed a special Music for Hope concert in the empty Duomo cathedral in Milan, at the invitation of the city at the heart of the country’s hardest-hit northern region.
“I believe in the strength of praying together; I believe in the Christian Easter, a universal symbol of rebirth that everyone – whether they are believers or not – truly needs right now,” said Bocelli. “Thanks to music, streamed live, bringing together millions of clasped hands everywhere in the world, we will hug this wounded Earth’s pulsing heart.”
'Moving, mesmerising, magnificent!' Andrea Bocelli leaves viewers in tears as 3.4 million watch his Music For Hope concert live from the deserted Duomo di Milano on Easter Sunday.
The Italian opera singer, a prominent Catholic, was granted exclusive access to closed Milan cathedral. He was solemn when photographed at the breathtaking cathedral in a tux. The Milan cathedral is closed amid Covid-19 but exclusively opened for Bocelli. He was accompanied by Duomo di Milano's organist, Emanuele Vianelli.
Bocelli’s voice served to soothe the fevered soul of a country in mourning. He performed at the request of the region hardest hit by the coronavirus, organized at the invitation of the mayor of Milan and the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo.
The 61-year-old left viewers around the world in tears, write Ellie Phillips and Olivia Wheeler, as 3.4million watched his Music For Hope live from the deserted Duomo di Milano.
Emotionally-charged fans praised Bocelli's powerful performance on social media as 'moving, mesmerising and magnificent!'
Andrea Bocelli’s concert drew both tears and praise in large measure. This ministering to souls is worth stressing, given the extent to which some have reduced fighting coronavirus to the physical dimension. Many priests have lost their lives tending to the spiritual needs of their flock. It was a moving, and unifying, moment, at least for those still on nodding terms with the soul. The concert was called ‘Music for Hope.’
Of course, those who have spent their political lives in squeezing hope from the world and from people will have been moved only to sneer and condemn. I had an unfortunate exchange with such people in the build-up. They sought to poison the atmosphere with claims that such ‘photo opportunities’ are ‘not helping.’ They ignored the fact that Bocelli performed at the request of the people in the hardest hit region in Italy. In fact, they miss most everything that is essential to soulcare. I found it significant that people claiming to be of religious persuasion miss the spiritual dimension of soulcare and reduce fighting coronavirus to the physical dimensions. They are practical atheists, and of the worst kind. They are death-dealing political operators rather than the life-affirmers I know my atheist friends to be.
Bocelli struck a powerful blow against the hopeless, useless, fruitless cynicism of the sophists in politics.
Andrea Bocelli sang in a closed and empty Duomo Cathedral in Milan, Italy on Sunday as part of a 'Music for Hope' event designed to bring people together during the coronavirus outbreak. Wearing a three-piece suit and black bow tie, the Italian tenor sang four hymns and finished with a moving rendition of Amazing Grace in an online concert broadcast worldwide on Easter Sunday. He also performed Bach's "Ave Maria" and "Sancta Maria" by Pietro Mascagni in front of a single microphone for the virtual concert.
Bocelli was accompanied only by the cathedral's organist, Emanuele Vianelli, because the Duomo, like many landmarks, is closed to the public because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Hollywood actor Hugh Jackman was one of many viewers moved by the performance. Sharing a snap of the tenor singing, he wrote on Twitter:
"From the bottom of our hearts, thank you @andreabocelliofficial. A tremendous gift and exactly what we needed. #amazinggrace #happyeaster."
Money raised from the concert will help provide emergency hospital resources, such as protective equipment for medical staff.
I’d suggest that anyone who thinks such things are ‘not helping’ is a jaundiced, prejudiced, two-bit bigot whose conscience is as withered as their intellect is meagre. They possess a paucity of ethics, intellect, and soul. In that, they are perfect personifications of the capitalist system they worship. Capitalism is a system born in material scarcity, and which cultivates a psychic scarcity. It is a spiritual and material impoverishment, and its apologists bear the hallmark.
Enough of such people, we can but hope and pray that they see the light. Redemption is always available for the contrite. But before that contrition, they need to overcome their hopeless condition, and their attempts to extend it over the entire world, and restore hope, and recover their connection with the transcendent source and end of such hope.
Andrea Bocelli’s message of ‘love, healing, and hope’ on Easter Sunday is a good start. Bocelli spread that love, light, healing, and hope far and wide. His performance was live-streamed on his own YouTube channel. Some 3.4 million people tuned in to watch at home, with a further 25 million views being recorded on the platform since.
I will end by repeating Bocelli’s affirmation of music as a unifying force in a divided world. I shall shortly be writing of this very thing, highlighting the musical model at the heart of Dante’s Comedy:
“I believe in the strength of praying together; I believe in the Christian Easter, a universal symbol of rebirth that everyone — whether they are believers or not — truly needs right now,” he said.
“Thanks to music, streamed live, bringing together millions of clasped hands everywhere in the world, we will hug this wounded Earth’s pulsing heart, this wonderful international forge that is reason for Italian pride.”