Franco Battiato

In December 1992, Iraq was a defeated, isolated country on its knees. The first Gulf War, which began in August 1990 with Saddam Hussein's regime invading Kuwait and ended in February 1991 with the intervention of the international coalition, had left behind devastated cities and a deeply battered population. The situation was made even more dire by the harsh economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations: the embargo completely isolated the country, triggering a severe humanitarian crisis. What was in short supply wasn't just basic necessities and medicine, but also books, musical instruments, and everything that sustains a nation's cultural life. While politics kept operating according to the logic of confrontation, Franco Battiato decided to make a gesture of the opposite kind: to use music to build a bridge to a people paying for sins that weren't their own.

A Bridge to Baghdad

And so, on December 4, 1992, the Sicilian musician took the stage at Baghdad's National Theatre for what would go down in history as the "Baghdad Concert," an event that drew heavy criticism at the time but is now rightly remembered for what it truly was: a courageous act of peace. The initiative was born out of the humanitarian project "A Bridge to Baghdad," launched on behalf of Iraqi children, with the collaboration of UNICEF, the Iraqi Red Crescent, the Iraqi embassy, and numerous organizations that worked to make that encounter happen despite the embargo and enormous logistical obstacles.
The concert was broadcast almost live across the Arab world and later in Europe, culminating in an Italian broadcast on Christmas Eve, with the goal of raising funds for Iraqi children.

The invitation had come directly from the Iraqi embassy. Battiato knew full well that accepting it would spark controversy: performing in a country ruled by Saddam Hussein meant exposing himself to accusations of legitimizing the regime. But the singer-songwriter was crystal clear in separating the political dimension from the human one: "The purpose of my visit to Iraq was humanitarian," he explained, "because I don't think it's right for a people to suffer for sins that aren't their own; but it's also true that I believe everyone deserves a chance at redemption, even murderers deserve the chance to become saints." And he reaffirmed a principle that perfectly summed up the meaning of his choice: there was "nothing stopping a person from helping someone who thinks differently." Battiato later made clear that if Saddam Hussein had shown up at the venue, he would have found himself deeply embarrassed — but the dictator did not attend the event.

Defying the Embargo

Even the journey to Baghdad itself was an act of solidarity. Enrico Maghenzani, Battiato's producer from 1985 to 1995, recalled those days like this: "There were 85 of us who left Italy not giving a damn about the embargo, we loaded the medicines as flight baggage, landed in Amman, Jordan, and crossed the desert by coach, and we were forced to split up between two hotels, which made staying in touch difficult. The rehearsals with the orchestra made up of Iraqi musicians and the Virtuosi Italiani were truly moving."
Once he arrived in the Iraqi capital, Battiato found musicians lacking the instruments they needed for the concert, and realized that even books had become a scarce commodity. He immediately understood just how deeply the embargo was suffocating not only the economy, but also the culture and the very possibility of looking toward the future in that country. So the concert also became a way of drawing the world's attention to the emergency faced by the civilian population and to the need to ease the restrictions hitting the weakest groups hardest.

The initiative also produced concrete results. Maghenzani recalls that "thanks to this concert, eight kids with serious illnesses managed to reach Italy for treatment, but they were just drops in the ocean, because shortly afterward the second Gulf War broke out." He adds: "The concert was broadcast almost live across the Arab world and then in Europe, first in London and then in Italy on Christmas Eve. We also made a video whose proceeds went to UNICEF and the Iraqi Red Crescent for child welfare projects."

The Concert at the National Theatre

On the stage of the National Theatre, Battiato, seated on a traditional rug, was backed by the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra and I Virtuosi Italiani. Maestro Giusto Pio conducted most of the program, Antonio Ballista took the podium for "Gilgamesh" and "Schmerzen," while Mohammad Othman conducted "Fogh in Nakhal," a traditional Iraqi folk song that the Sicilian artist would go on to record in 1993 on the album "Caffè de la Paix."
Even the setlist was built like a symbolic journey between different cultures. The opening with "L'ombra della luce," sung entirely in Arabic, was the most eloquent gesture of the whole evening. Battiato turned that composition into a prayer addressed directly to the Iraqi audience, choosing their language to express closeness and hope: “Ricordami come sono infelice/ Lontano dalle tue leggi/ Come non sprecare il tempo che mi rimane/ E non abbandonarmi mai/ Non mi abbandonare mai”. A way of asking that God not abandon a people left without bread, without homes, and without a future.
After "Il re del mondo" and "Fisiognomica," the concert took on increasingly intense tones with "Prospettiva Nevski," where the coldness, desolation and nostalgia seemed to perfectly mirror the human landscape left behind by war. "I treni di Tozeur" and "Mesopotamia," on the other hand, evoked the geographies and civilizations of the Mediterranean and the Near East, almost as a reminder of a shared cultural heritage that no conflict could ever erase. "E ti vengo a cercare" brought the spiritual dimension back to the fore, while the excerpt from "Gilgamesh" summoned the ancient Mesopotamian epic, one of the founding texts of the civilization born in those very lands.

The second part of the concert alternated Wagner, Brahms, Beethoven and "Plaisir d'amour", showing how European music could naturally converse with Middle Eastern music, without borders or oppositions. "Come un cammello in una grondaia" then paved the way for the most intense moment of the evening: "L'oceano di silenzio". In that piece Battiato seemed to offer an answer to the pain he had breathed in during his days in Baghdad. It was a vision of hope, the possibility that a light could go on existing even in the heart of darkness: “Cosa avrei visto del mondo/ Senza questa luce che illumina/ I miei pensieri neri/ Quanta pace trova l’anima dentro”.
The concert closed with "Fogh in Nakhal", an ancient song from Iraqi popular tradition whose title literally means "Above the palm trees". It's a song that tells of a distant, unreachable love, deeply rooted in the country's culture. Battiato performed it in Arabic, closing the circle that had opened at the start of the evening with "L'ombra della luce". It was the most natural way to reaffirm that music can become a common language even when politics divides.
In the final minutes of the show, a little girl, Aida, also came up on stage, and Battiato wanted her by his side. Her presence turned the finale into an image of extraordinary symbolic power: the face of Iraqi childhood, the very children the concert was trying to help, became the true center of the scene.
A record of that historic show survives on a DVD that conveys all the emotion and difficulty of that undertaking.

A few years later the world would witness a new war in Iraq. That's why, watching those images today, the "Baghdad Concert" appears even more extraordinary. It didn't change the course of history, but it proved that it was possible to defy the logic of war and conflict by choosing that of solidarity and peace instead. For one evening, in the heart of a wounded city, Franco Battiato truly managed to build a bridge to Baghdad.

The concert setlist

• L'ombra della luce (in arabo)
• Il re del mondo
• Fisiognomica
• Prospettiva Nevski
• I treni di Tozeur
• Mesopotamia
• E ti vengo a cercare
• Gilgamesh (trio dal 2º atto)
• Schmerzen (Richard Wagner)
• Plaisir d'amour (Johann Paul Aegidius Martin)
• Gestillte Sehnsucht (Johannes Brahms)
• Oh Sweet Were the Hours (Ludwig van Beethoven)
• Come un cammello in una grondaia
• L'oceano di silenzio
• Fogh in Nakhal (traditional Iraqi song)

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24/07/2026