The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared today the Italian opera as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. UNESCO made the decision at the eighteenth meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, which is being held from last Monday to next Saturday in the city of Kasane, in northern Botswana.
UNESCO highlighted that opera singing in Italy is a physiologically controlled form of singing that enhances the transmission capacity of the voice in acoustic spaces such as amphitheaters and churches. “Transmitted orally between a teacher and a student, this practice favors collective cohesion and sociocultural memory. It is a means of free expression and intergenerational dialogue, and its cultural value is recognized nationally and internationally,” she stressed.
The same recognition has been granted to bolero from Cuba and Mexico, considered the genre of romantic music and poetry par excellence. Both countries jointly defended the candidacy of the bolero as “identity, emotion and poetry made into song”, which is “an indispensable element of the sentimental song of Latin America.”
The bolero was born in Santiago de Cuba (southeast) at the end of the 19th century with the piece “Tristezas” by Pepe Sánchez, and in the first decades of the 20th century it was adopted by Mexico, which enriched it with its own style. In 1932, the Mexican Consuelo Velázquez released “Bésame mucho”, the most international of boleros, later performed by Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and The Beatles, among others.
In the gastronomic field it has been declared Intangible Cultural Heritage the ceviche, one of the most emblematic and appreciated dishes of Peruvian gastronomy throughout the world. It is a delicacy that consists of marinated meat – seafood, fish or both – with citrus dressing of which there are different versions that integrate the culinary culture of several Latin American countries in the Pacific Ocean. In Peru, ceviche is considered the flagship dish and cultural heritage.