In Milan, a special performance at the Opera prison has featured instruments made from smugglers' boats that brought migrants to Italy.

At long last, vindication has arrived for an Oscar-winning composer who sought to prove he was as capable of breathing life into Italy’s grand theaters as into gritty Hollywood films.

The Catholic Church and the northern Italian city of Ferrara are making their peace with Antonio Vivaldi nearly 300 years after the city’s archbishop effectively canceled the staging of one of his operas.