Invigorating culture at Dante

In presence of Pak American Cultural Centre, Alliance Francaise and Goethe- Institut in Karachi, creating a stride in cultural life of Karachi was never an easy task to perform. However, Italian Cultural Centre, Dante Alighieri, has been striving hard to mark a difference. Though, their entry is relatively very recent but they are very skilfully emitting the wax required to smooth the cultural path.
It is said about Italy that it has more culture than you can shake a paint brush at. Further, it is fair to say that if some thing can be painted, played, eaten, sung, sculpted or written about, the Italians had a hand in elevating its appreciation to the highest form.
Same proved to be true when at Dante, work of Ghalib Baqar, a teacher of Fine Arts Department of Karachi University was put on display. Baqar is known to be a very skilled artist. He uses water colours for carving his thought on canvass. Handling and use of water colour itself demands a precision in mixing and requires great amount of expertise while it is used on canvass. As many as twenty pieces of this relatively difficult medium depicting Ghalib Baqar's acumen and grasp on the subject were put on display.
His main theme of work was to highlight the social problems of society where justice for a mass section of society is inaccessible, disparity among the rich and poor is widening and inequity is taking roots because of illiteracy especially among the women.
To describe all these issues he chose woman as emblem of the mentioned problems. He painted these problems in much delicate manner by making a right choice between colours and objects and keeping a balance in message. Viewers took immense interest in his work. Before the show was unveiled, Pratesi, an Italian art critic, with the help of slides deliberated upon the modern history of Italian Art and artists, majority of whom, according to him are inclined towards the commercialism.
It was a very pleasant surprise to witness a large number of students of Karachi University's Fine Art Department at Dante since Baqar has been teaching there. Further, Italian Consulate Cultural Attaché Ms Fioretta has also been regularly taking Italian language classes there as well. Nevertheless, it was heartening to note that Dante takes stock of the fact that students of any society are the real agent of change.
It also provided an opportunity to students to mingle with other participants and have a feeling of attention being paid on them since they do not often have the chance to meet and socialise people and artists on such significant plane.
As a gesture of conviviality with Karachiites, within two weeks after the painting exhibition, Dante, under a very spirited leadership of its Director Ms Andreina Russo organised another more enduring event and at this time they used a more powerful medium of music to revisit the roots of modern opera and pay homage to the old mastereos and veterans.
A team of fifteen local performers, donned in colourful attire specially stitched for the occasion, from almost all religious groups and age led by Ms Ayesha Faizuddin, left a lasting impact on the audience by their performance. Since the time of rehearsal was very short and the amount of specialisation required to deliver the pieces was immense, minor incoherence in rhythm and stanzas were ignored.
The musical pieces sung in the evening were composed during 1500 to 1965 A.D in Europe and particularly in Italy. First part of the programme, consists of seven pieces including one solo and one instrumental performance, was derived from the collection of poems, songs and short plays named "Carmina Burana" found in 1803 in Munich.
Most parts of the Carmina Burana were written in Latin which was the standard language of literacy at those times. Carl Orff, who later on played these songs, got the possession of Carmina in 1934 and it received its first performance in 1937 at Frankfurt Opera.
The most impressive piece of the second part was the humming chorus of one of the world's most popular operas Madama Butterfly's G.Puccini. This chorus was a true depiction of the agony Ms gheisha Cio-Cio-San (famous as Madama Butterfly) was going through after a deceitful event of her life when her partner left him.
The concert which started in time after the speech of an articulate and passionate Counsel General of Italy, Bruno Pasquino, was so balanced and well- organised that till the very last moments listeners remained glued to their seats.
The audience was literally bewitched by the enthralling performance of the group of artists who performed in concert. Among the performers, Ayesha Fiazuddin's performance was especially spell-binding. Her grasp over the rhymes, lines, music and specially her control over the pitch of her voice was tremendous. Her solo performance was really astounding.
Being the mentor of the whole group, she takes pride and praise for not only singing and performing but also for organising the whole show along with Ms Andriena Russo, the Director of Dante who was a part of team and performed timidly from background.
The other team members also performed well. However; they were guided by Ms Ayesha a Karachi born Opera artist who obtained her Piano Diploma from Belgium. Zubair Soomro's daughters were also members of the team who delivered elegantly according to the coach's instruction.
The beauty of production and opera presentation at Dante Aligheri left a compelling desire to learn the Italian language and intricacies of opera which I believe many of those present were not aware of.
Being a firm believer of the strength of music and the impact it has on everybody's life and character.
I do agree with the notion that music is a universal language that carries a message; it emanates rhythm & tempo while transmitting a message of love & peace among the audience. Dante Aligheri has proved its ability to create harmony and spread the message of peace among Karachiites through its continuous efforts and support to cultural and charitable activities.
In fact Dante provides solace to tiring minds and souls to ponder over issues which provide impetus to their aesthetic sense, an ever growing trend which can be easily gauged by the increased attendance in their programmes.