Italian opera singing joins pizza-making on UN cultural heritage list

Unesco describes art form as ‘means of free expression’ with cultural value ‘recognised at national and international levels’

Italian opera singing has been recognised on a UN cultural heritage list in an acknowledgment of the practice as a “living art form”.

Italian opera made its debut in the late 1500s in Florence and went on to generate many world-renowned composers, from Claudio Monteverdi and Antonio Vivaldi to Gioachino Rossini and Giuseppe Verdi.