“Music, for a while, shall all your pains beguiles”: the famous Purcell aria contains a universal truth, and so the Italian prisoners of war resorted to music to spend their hours in captivity.
“Sounds of Captivity: Music by Italian Military Prisoners During WWII” is a lecture at Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò by Maestro Francesco Lotoro from the Istituto di Letteratura Musicale Concentrazionaria in Italy, on April 24 at 6.30 pm.
The lecture will explore the musical and artistic production by World War II Italian military prisoners detained in Germany, Russia, and Western Allied camps between 1940 and 1947. Lotoro will discuss for the first time a surprisingly rich creative artistic production that, based on his research, involved more than 100,000 prisoners, thus stressing the crucial hailing role that music played in the traumatic experience of World War II military internment.
The lecture will include the live US premiere of Elegia in morte di Vincenzo Romeo by Arturo Coppola (1913-1998), a duo for piano and cello (with Francesco Lotoro at the piano and Samuel Decaprio at the cello) that Coppola composed in 1944 while interned in the German Stalag XA in Sandboster in memory of Lieutenant Vincenzo Romeo, who was brutally shot there.
From April 23, the International Conference Preserving Memories of War Captivity: Legacy, Museums and Repositories will take place at the Center for Italian Modern Art (421 Broome St.)
and on Zoom. The event consists of a two-day international conference where archivists, historians, and museum experts will converge to explore their research endeavors. Delving into the intricate tapestry of WWII Italian captivity across Italy, the United Kingdom, the US, and Australia, the event promises illuminating discussions on preservation, storytelling, and cataloging efforts.
Three hybrid panels will seamlessly blend in-person presentations with virtual participation via Zoom. Experts will unveil their curated collections, pioneering projects, and share insights into the meticulous curation of special collections, museums, and institutions intertwined with the cultural and material legacies of Italian POWs.
These events are part of a series on “Memory, Memories, and Memorialization of WWII Italian Captivity”, organized by Elena Bellina (New York University) and Giorgia Alù (The University of Sydney), and co-sponsored by NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, The University of Sydney, The John D. Calandra Institute for Italian American Studies (CUNY), and the Center for Italian Modern Art (CIMA). The series aims to investigate how WWII Italian POWs have narrated their long captivity experiences, as well as how these narratives have been recollected and memorialized in Italy, America, Australia, Asia, and Africa.
They are particularly meaningful because they will take place right before April 25 in New York and in Europe and on April 25 in Australia, a date that is particularly relevant in Italy and in Australia in relation to the end of World War II. In Italy, April 25 or Liberation Day commemorates the victory of the Italian Resistance Movement over Nazi-Fascism. In Australia and New Zealand, April 25 or ANZAC Day is a National Day of Remembrance that commemorates all Australians and New Zealanders who served and died in all wars and peacekeeping operations, with particular reference to WWI and WWII.
