Mariella Nava - A Life as a Songwriter, from Song to Stage

"Figlio, non sei più giglio". Drawing on the lauda "Il pianto della Madonna" by Jacopone da Todi, this theatrical monologue by Stefania Porrino is being brought to stages across the country by an exceptional duo. Daniela Poggi, a familiar face from film and television who has worked with Walter Chiari, Johnny Dorelli, Ettore Scola and Arnoldo Foà - her resume also includes hosting "Chi l'ha visto" and appearances in TV series such as "Incantesimo", "Il maresciallo Rocca", "Nebbie e delitti" and "L'allieva" - plays Maria, a contemporary woman who is the mother of a man who committed violence against a woman, and a mother herself.

Accompanying the performance is the music of Mariella Nava, a singer-songwriter who emerged in the mid-Eighties but made her name above all thanks to "Spalle al muro," which today remains one of the best-loved songs in the repertoire of Renato Zero, and to two songs from the Nineties, "I migliori anni della nostra vita" (written with Guido Morra and Maurizio Fabrizio) and "Cercami." She also wrote "Come mi vuoi" (Eduardo de Crescenzo, later covered by Mina), "Il gioco delle parti" (Mietta), "Per amore" (Andrea Bocelli) and "Questi figli" (Gianni Morandi). For years she has run her own record label, Suoni dall'Italy, and has just taken part in a tribute album to Franco Califano, "Sarò Franco – volume 2," released by Azzurra Music under the artistic direction of Dori Ghezzi, Federico Zampaglione, Grazia Di Michele and Franco Simone.

A shy and private artist, but one with very clear ideas and a strength held within a poetic pen that has managed to express love, eros and every shade of the human condition, with empathy and a surprising gift for empathising with others. We tried to uncover a few secrets about her original approach to songwriting, both for herself and for other artists, a memory of Mango (with whom she once sang a duet) and Lucio Dalla (they co-wrote a track together on "Luna Matana"), and how the intense "Ogni volta che respiro," set to music by the late maestro Ennio Morricone, ended up in the hands of Eros Ramazzotti.

It's this last track that gives its title to a Spotify playlist put together to accompany the interview and dedicated to the artist from Taranto, featuring some of her most important songs, her most illustrious collaborations, and the previously unreleased Franco Califano track "Oltre la città," performed by Mariella with Vincenzo Schettini.

How did the idea for this artistic partnership between you and Daniela Poggi come about, when did it begin, and what has the audience's response been like in the theatres? Do you think the message has come across loud and clear?

The audience responds very well. At first there are puzzled looks; it's not easy to grasp what the spoken message is about the feelings experienced by a family, or by a mother in our case, from the side of the femicide, the killer. Usually people take introspective journeys into what happens from the victim's point of view, which can lead the viewer to ask: why? Is there a desire to justify? To understand? To forgive? No — to prevent. That's our mission: to help people understand what might have happened in the upbringing given by a mother who questions herself and tries, by rewinding the tape of her own life, to understand whether there were shortcomings or gaps on her part, something she failed to notice.

"I never could have imagined that one day I'd find myself with a son I no longer recognise." She asks herself whether she will ever be able to forgive him, but in the end we don't provide the answer: it's clear that it will be up to the son to recognise the gravity of what he has done, going through a process of regaining a sense of reason, something he has certainly lost. That is our journey, and the audience is taken by the hand, thanks to Daniela's performing ability. Every single time she truly lives through that drama and portrays it masterfully, while I underscore it musically, highlighting the passages and emotions through themed songs.

Yes, many times. In "Dentro una rosa", "In nome di ogni donna", which was included in this show because at one point it says "Tu perché non sei venuta da me?", referring to her son's partner as if to say "why didn't you think that I, as a woman, could become your ally? Why didn't you turn to people who could help you, why didn't you report it?". In that passage I sing, precisely, "In nome di ogni donna" (which you can listen to in the playlist, ed.) which I find a song that's still relevant, still pertinent today.

On "Sarò Franco", the track I perform opens the second volume, it's called "Oltre la città". It's a previously unreleased song, and it was wonderful to approach this text. I wanted to keep it and sing it as it was, in the masculine, to give voice to the feeling conveyed in this song-poem the way he always knew how to do. It's about a difficult relationship that he wanted to throw himself into, but which met with resistance from the other side. A collection of thoughts expressed very well, and with my piano I tried to convey the emotions I felt when I first heard the demo. One curious detail is that joining me is the violin of Vincenzo Schettinia brilliant science communicator and physics professor who explains very well how music is nothing but air, vibrations, waves that we have to channel and direct. We came together in this "emotional-physical" process(laughs) thanks to Franco's writing.

Do you find there are points of contact between your writing and Califano's?

Definitely yes — I too like to tell stories of love in a deep way, and even where I've touched on more sensual moments, I wanted to portray them with a certain emotional involvement. The first volume of this tribute, put together by Alberto Zeppieri, won the Club Tenco award for Best Concept Album; it speaks of love in a visceral way, and the artists called upon to sing it were people who have known how to express love, such as Patty Pravo. It did a lot of good to hear her voice on "Io so amare così," because that song tells of the possibility for a love to be lived even just for an instant, without hypocrisy — because sometimes we tie love down to obligations and timelines, whereas Franco loved to tell of love for love's own sake.

You know, the female point of view isn't so far removed when it comes to seduction. The intentions are the same, reaching the goal… and everyone does it their own way. I tried to quietly tell what a woman does, but effectively, and I thought of giving voice to male thought through my own point of view. So I often wanted to experiment with this "transfer", so as not to hide behind anything. I think of when I sang "La mia riva", "Un bacio" (which seemed very light). A woman had never done that before, because she had men writing for her. It had never been so much the other way around, at least in Italy: I tried, and I'm still trying.

This has always been an attitude of mine, that of observing things. I've always been very attentive in order to grow, it's almost a stylistic quirk of mine. Not to take part but to observe, or rather, to take part by observing (laughs). It wasn't complicated, when I came home later than I'd promised my parents, to watch my mother's reaction, almost one of disappointment. I had an older brother and sister, and she'd say "you too, like all the others, I thought you were different". And also: "Children don't listen to you, they don't consider you, they don't understand the anxiety". I understand it, but what could I do? It was my need to grow up and not pay attention to the time. That detail was what made me become my own mother.

For our readers, the name Mariella Nava will surely bring to mind the career relaunch of Renato Zero in 1991 with one of his best-known songs of the decade. In that case too you wrote "Spalle al muro" about growing older, and you were thirty at the time, which is further proof of your ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes…

This is an exercise I've done ever since I was a child. They're reflections — everyone is engaged in an ongoing tug-of-war with time, and it becomes harder and harder as we go on. If no one wants to die young and we all want to live long lives, why does old age scare us so much? Society, at the time, didn't picture it as a stage of life worth living, and with this song I wanted to redeem the word "old." Not in its negative sense, then, but in the sense of a long life, of wisdom.

These are songs where, when I write, I immediately think of the most suitable voice, and I often have no hesitation: the right voice is his. In fact, his singing, his very being, inspires me. The collaboration on "Spalle al muro" was lightning-fast, born spontaneously: a handshake, "you write well, write something for me, think of something for me". I had a huge responsibility: "Renato Zero asking me to write for him?" I saw it as a test, that was my thinking at the time. When Renato heard the demo, it was immediately clear to him that it was a song "to be brought to an important stage". He'd never been to Sanremo and decided to do it with my song! It was something very powerful, time stood still there: Sanremo reached a peak of energy because the song carried a strong message, he showed what it means to be a true performer, and Sanremo is always a magnifying glass.

A test passed with flying colors. Other songs Renato has performed bring out other sides of his personality, less solemn, perhaps more eccentric and sarcastic. A sign that you study the people you collaborate with in depth?

I'm convinced that I have to be the pen for those voices and for that musical genre, in service of that world, even if my own signature has to come through. I like being that way.

Yes, of course. That's what happened with “Per amore”. I wrote it for Tosca, another very talented performer who could still cover it again one day: at the time the collaboration didn't come through, but it so happened that Andrea Bocelli heard it, and thanks to his version it reached the whole world — it was a real surprise for me. I hadn't thought of it in an operatic key, yet it turned out to be a perfect match. Thanks to him it also made its way to Brazil, where it was successfully covered by Zizi Possi.

The song is “It's Forever”, we sang it together on stage, we even went to the 2005 Ski World Championships together... we're still in touch, we always exchange season's greetings, and would you believe it, she's waiting for another song from me!

I listen to a lot of it, certainly, and I love new movements too, even ones far removed from my own style. I went to see an artist I've been keeping an eye on for a while, JP Cooper, when he played a show in Rome. I went up to him and started rattling off a few titles of his songs, and he looked at me wide-eyed. I always chase after the things that inspire me.

You have a label called Suoni dall'Italy...

Exactly. "Dall'Italy." I like the idea of sending out our own signals from here and picking up others from outside, a bit like when we search for aliens from Earth (laughs). This label doesn't have the political or financial clout of others, but it has plenty of goodwill to seek out musical forms that have been somewhat forgotten — I'm thinking of the great songwriter Mimmo Cavallo. I also released a beautiful record by Fausto Mesolella (Avion Travel), "Canto Stefano – Fausto Mesolella canta Stefano Benni." I like doing these experiments, these things that the majors can't follow because they're chasing different numbers and different results.

Your latest project was the "Trialogo" with Grazia Di Michele and Rossana Casale. How did you manage to blend together? What was the synergy like between two songwriters and an artist perceived more as a performer (ranging from jazz classics to the repertoire of Jacques Brel)?

It's precisely this "mix" of tastes, the fact of coming from musical generations that are close but distinct, that strangely brought us together. Unfortunately we were unlucky, because we lived through this three-way encounter during the Covid period: we started out backwards, first with a live show combining our three repertoires (with an important date at the Sala Sinopoli of the Auditorium in Rome). We were absolutely buzzing, until the lockdown hit — but we didn't give up: we started connecting in the truest sense of the word and writing together, and our album together remains the document of our encounter. We decided to self-produce it, but that too was a lovely experience, and we're happy with what we achieved.

You've also collaborated with Lucio Dalla on a track from “Luna Matana”, and you sang “Il mio punto di vista” together with Mango. What has stayed with you from these two colleagues? Any particular memory you'd like to share?

Dalla was astonishing in his genius. He was someone who could always catch you off guard, always turning up where you least expected. When he heard this song of mine, he told me, "You've floored me! But now I want to rough it up a little, because that's what I do, I rough things up," and so he took my story about a man who discovers he's alive again by falling in love, and moved it to a drive-in in America, giving it a whole new setting. That's how it became "Notte americana." Lucio thought highly of me and gave me good advice: "Every songwriter has to be a bit of an entrepreneur of themselves," he used to tell me. "You have to understand where to go, how to steer yourself. You've always shown great strength as a woman in music, but you need to learn how to manage yourself."

I remember Mango as a wonderful person - besides having an extraordinary voice, he had a discretion and a dedication in the studio that I consider exemplary. When we collaborated on "Il mio punto di vista", he had entered a phase where he seemed embittered by the direction he felt music was taking, and we talked about it at length. "In my opinion, we need to bring back quality, in the sense of genuine exploration." Pino was way ahead in what he was doing, in his work with Rocco Petruzzi: his arrangements were far removed from what was around at the time, and he valued that same spirit of exploration in others too. It pained him that the media most of the time failed to understand him.