On the heels of France’s year of cultural promotion in China comes Italy, hoping to wow the Middle Kingdom with the best of Italian operas, Renaissance art and industrial designs
　　
　　Traffic around the China Millennium Monument in Beijing came to a halt the evening of January 20. Alongside a square facing the monument, people stepped out of taxis and buses and joined hundreds standing still, eyes set on the sky.
　　A dancer dressed in allegorical costume, suspended from a flying sphere decorated with iconography of the Italian Renaissance, flew 35 meters above the ground and threw petals into the air.
　　Titled “the Renewal of Time,” with the space around the monument as the theatrical stage, the performance was the modern recreation of a show that Michelangelo helped stage during the Renaissance. Organizers invoked Renaissance-period art and melded it with images from Chinese traditional festivals on flying spheres and a 25-meter high screen, using the performance as an occasion to recount the old and new Italy and pay tribute to China.
　　The evening gala, created by Varese, Italy-based Studio Festi, was one of the inaugural events for the Year of Italy in China, which will continue throughout 2006. According to show director Monica Maimone, the show was specially designed for the occasion and would not be re-staged again.
　　The audience, a mix of art patrons and passersby, stood mesmerized by the half-hour performance. The chill of minus three degrees Celsius weather had no effect on the enthusiasm of the crowd, and the street audience seemed reluctant to walk away after the performance ended.
　　“I have never seen anything like this before,” said Chang Ran, a junior of Beijing Forestry University who watched from the square. “It is really eye-opening, and I was amazed by the creativity of Italian artists.”
　　
　　A year to shine
　　
　　
　　During a state visit to China by Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi in December 2004, the presidents of the two countries officially announced a plan to organize the Year of Italy in China.
　　A congratulatory message from the Italian president on the start of the year says the event “aims to strengthen the Italian presence in this growing country, and present to the Chinese public an overview of the Italian past and present.”
　　A concert, exhibition and open-air show marked the inauguration of the cultural gala. On the same day as the attention-getting outdoor show, an art exhibition dedicated to the Renaissance opened at the Museum of the Millennium Monument.
　　Titled “the Mirror of the Ages,” it features a selection of more than 80 masterpieces of Italian art dating from the late 13th to the 19th century and will continue through April 23. Among the works are 11 paintings that have never before been exhibited, from the Bardini collection in Florence. The highlight of the exhibition is an early work of Leonardo da Vinci, showing the face of an ideal woman, likely drawn as a model for an adoring Virgin Mary.
　　The previous evening, Beijing’s Forbidden City Concert Hall played host to an inaugural concert performed by New Scarlatti Orchestra, one of Italy’s three top-rate orchestras, which showcased a selection of Italian opera arias by Verdi, Puccini and Donizetti.
　　“As Italian operas are acknowledged as a great treasure in the world of operas and human civilizations, the concert is definitely an exquisite opera music feast for the legion of Chinese opera fans,” said Zheng Quan, a professor at the Chinese Central Conservatory of Music, in attendance that night.
　　Wang Chan, a 24-year-old civil servant, was also among the 1,000-odd audience, many of whom were Chinese university students. “It’s a shame that I couldn’t enjoy the opera arias much for I couldn’t understand the language, but the music and melody are really enchanting,” she said.
　　Italian Ambassador to China Gabriele Menegatti said quality was the only concern in selecting cultural activities for the Year of Italy in China.
　　“We brought the best and possibly the people who don’t know anything [about Italian culture] will savor the best, and we are trying to do the same in every single field,” Menegatti said.
　　
　　Comparative histories
　　
　　Talking about the significance of holding a cultural year to boost understanding between two countries, he said, “Like you have to understand Chinese people’s obsession with tea to understand China, if you want to understand Italy, you must understand our obsession with beauty and quality of life rooted in our culture.”
　　The Year of France in China, which ran from October 2004 to July 2005, was the first initiative of its kind. In comparison, the Year of Italy in China will also consist of a series of exhibitions, operas, concerts, shows and forums, but will take a “softer” approach based on a more sophisticated national identity, as Menegatti puts it.
　　The French year’s highlights included an electronic music and laser show by Jean-Michel Jarre in the Forbidden City, and a much talked about exhibition of 50 Impressionist paintings. In comparison, Italy’s year will feature the first exhibition on Pompeii in China, a recital by the world-renowned pianist and conductor Maestro Maurizio Pollini, international conferences on the conservation of water resources, alternative energy resources and environmental protection in Beijing and Shanghai, exhibitions of Italian industrial and architectural designs in Shanghai and Hong Kong and an exhibition of small and medium-sized enterprises in Guangzhou with Italy as the guest country of honor.
　　Menegatti said that China and Italy have in common a long history of culture and status as the domains of ancient civilizations.
　　“The past has shaped our societies very much in common. That is, man is the center in both societies, which means that belittled values of life, like friendship, respect for others, family, are very important to your society as to our society,” he said.
　　“Italy, like China, is not only an old country. Based on this common experience of old civilizations, we are also fast thriving into a very modern industrialized country. Based on this common past, in the future Italy and China can proceed hand in hand more easily than the others.”
　　
　　Cultural byproducts
　　
　　More specifically, Menegatti said, China and Italy have great potential for cooperation in trade, environment protection and cultural exchanges, and 2006 will be a year to foster this potential while expanding the awareness of Chinese people about Italy.
　　Menegatti explained how cultural cooperation could help boost relations in other areas.
　　“I show you the Renaissance so that you will be curious enough to go to Florence. I bring the New Scarlatti Orchestra, because once you enjoy the music, you will be tempted to see an opera in Italy. I bring you industrial design, not so you would copy my machine, but so you could re align with an Italian partner to develop a pair of shoes or a motorcycle that are functional and also beautiful.”
　　In identifying Italian expertise that China needs, Menegatti picked out areas of industrial design, environmental protection, city landscape design, and cultural relics conservation and restoration. According to him, besides educating wealthy Chinese elites on the importance of quality of life, Italian expertise can also be adopted in the Chinese Government’s efforts to restore the harmony between humans and nature that is being disturbed by a frenzy of development.
　　The Italian ambassador proudly gave a brief introduction to a joint program between the two countries on mural repairing in the Chinese city of Xi’an. Italian experts have been invited to restore a 2,000-meter mural in the ancient capital, since Italy is a master in this field, with 2,000 years of experience developed from the restoration of Pompeii and Rome.
　　“As culturally rich countries as China and Italy, cultural exchanges are taking place every day even without the Year of Italy,” Menegatti said. “I hope 2006 will only serve as a good start and that 2007 and 2008 would be as rich as 2006.”
　　
　　A sophisticated approach
　　
　　With regard to economic benefits that could trickle from cultural exchanges, Menegatti explained that no activity in the cultural year is aimed at an immediate result.
　　“I think the Year of Italy in China will put a larger number of people in bilateral relations than in the past, but the key of approach is to look at China as a millennium country, not as it is today. We need to see what China is, what it represents, where it comes from, where it is heading and where we can better enter. This is what I refer to as a sophisticated attitude without having economy as No.1 gain.”
　　In January, the ambassador sent a prestigious Italian landscape designer to Tianjin, two-hour drive southeast of Beijing, to offer free consultancy to the mayor in the city’s grand plan to reinvent itself. According to the ambassador, there was no economic interest in doing so, but a modern and beautiful Tianjin is what Italy and he would like to see.
　　Exposing Chinese people to the attitude of Italian creativity and quality of life is another initiative of the Year of Italy that is not for immediate benefit. The ambassador hopes that by viewing the exhibition of Renaissance masterpieces, Chinese audiences will understand that today’s world-renowned design brands from Italy, such as Armani and Ferrari, developed in the tradition of a culture in which creativity is linked to beauty.
　　Menegatti, continuing with the social commentary, also said he wished that China’s middle-class who can afford a refined way of life, would awaken to the importance of quality of life and learn styles in dressing, dining and interior decorating from Italians.

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