Milva

Milva and her cultural legacy between 1959 and 2011

From the Emilian countryside to Milan's Teatro alla Scala and the Paris Olympia. A lifelong student of life understood as art and culture

She passed away at 81, one day before “her” 25 Aprile, the day she spent a lifetime singing about, telling of Liberation and the value of libertarian ideals.

She was the greatest exponent of Italian theatre-voice performance and one of the greatest in the world, with little affinity for pop music. She was also — in the composer's own words — the world's greatest interpreter of Astor Piazzolla (their unforgettable "Live At The Bouffes Du Nord") who dedicated his "Ave Maria" to her; she was among the finest interpreters of Bertolt Brecht (absolute masterpieces "Milva canta Brecht" from 1971, "Milva sings a new Brecht" from 1989, both directed by Giorgio Strehler, and "Die sieben Todsünden der Kleinbürger" from 1983). Exceptional alongside Luciano Berio in "La vera storia", also conceived by the composer with her in mind as lead performer, and with Ennio Morricone (the album "Dedicato a Milva da Ennio Morricone"). In Paris she was cherished as one of the world's few interpreters of Edith Piaf's legacy ("Milva canta Edith Piaf" – 1970). Alda Merini dedicated poems to her and wanted her by her side on a tour that alternated moving, sophisticated songwriting (Giovanni Nuti) with hilarious, unapologetically theatrical sketches, in which the singer let herself be teased by the poet in memorable duets.

Milva stood out as a cultured performer starting with her "Canti della Libertà" (1965), a record that remains a landmark to this day, but she also gave us a few (admittedly rare) luxury pop performances, always delivered with tremendous personality, starting with her debut single "Le Rififi'" (1959). Then came the little-known baroque pop of "Sbarre" (1963) and the gripping narrative of "L'ultimo tram" (1964 – the only truly notable song ever presented at Sanremo, a festival that granted her a "token" award in 2018 by popular demand), before a series of remarkable interpretations of Luigi Tenco, Franco Battiato, Fabrizio De André, Paolo Conte, Enzo Jannacci, Bruno Martino, among others. Vangelis and Mikis Theodorakis offered her songs, with results that weren't exactly memorable, but with openly declared admiration.

Divisive in Italy for a certain "diva-like" attitude, paired with a clear and openly declared allegiance to the libertarian ideals of an intellectual left that once was, she lived out a kind of contradiction that earned her admiration but also, on the other hand, genuine censorship — since being "communist" in the arts was something permitted to "male" singer-songwriters, but certainly not to "a lady".

Honoured with awards of every kind, including the title of Commendatore of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (Rome, 2007), Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Paris, 1995), Knight of the Order of the Legion of Honour (Paris, 2009), and the Cross of Merit, First Class, of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Berlin, 2006), she holds the record for the most releases in Italy (173 albums between official studio, live and compilation releases featuring unreleased material, in at least 7 languages, including Japanese) and has sold 80,000,000 records worldwide, not counting her video output, which constitutes an essential legacy.

She performed across Europe, the Americas, China, Japan and Russia, drawing thousands of spectators and receiving ovations reserved only for the greatest legends in the world, treading the boards of La Scala, Milan's Piccolo Teatro (of which she was the undisputed queen for at least thirty years), the Châtelet, the Paris Opéra, Zurich's Schauspielhaus, Berlin's Konzerthaus, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, Tokyo's Suntory Hall, and Barcelona's Palau de la Música Catalana, where in 2005 she recorded the DVD of a thrilling recital in front of a truly ecstatic audience.

She retired from the stage in 2011, after coming to terms with the fact that her health no longer allowed her to perform at the level she once had, and she did so with absolute dignity, while maintaining a constant relationship with her admirers through social media.

Though best known as a dramatic performer, she never held back from cabaret either (her shows with Gino Bramieri, among others, are unforgettable), yet she never fell into the trap of vulgarity, even when playing the role of a prostitute, asserting her absolute independence as a woman who needed no resemblance to any man in order to be appreciated.

Her apparent coldness concealed an untold depth of passion and emotion, expressed through her singing and stage presence, but also through emotional breakdowns in her private life that fuelled pointless gossip and endless snide remarks.

Her political stances in Italy exposed her to rather disrespectful attacks. Sadly memorable is her 2009 interview on "La Zanzara", when, after she declared her intention to leave Italy because of Berlusconi's media dominance, Giuseppe Cruciani told her: "I think you shouldn't give any more interviews".

Milva's character was capable of extraordinary bursts of generosity, but also of an austere mask — the same one that sometimes led her to show up at cinema and theatre box offices saying, "I am Milva, and I've already paid for my own ticket".

As an actress she appeared alongside Giancarlo Zagni in "La bellezza di Ippolita" (1962), with lead performers Gina Lollobrigida, Enrico Maria Salerno and Carlo Giuffrè, but it's only right to remember her alongside two absolute geniuses: Giorgio Strehler and Peter Brook.

She was a television personality between 1963 and 1988, bringing Brecht into Italian homes. It took great courage, and it's not enough to simply say "it was a time when you still could".

Piazzolla described her voice as "deep as the night", but her singing was originally that of a classically trained mezzo-soprano who, in search of an identity, chose instead to work on the power of her overtones and a deliberately theatrical, knowingly nasal delivery — one that was nonetheless capable of remarkable flexibility and tender lightness, as in her magnificent, unsurpassed version of "Oblivion" by the Argentine master of "cultured" tango.

Flawless execution was a genuine trademark of hers, even during her illness, when she stubbornly insisted on performing for as long as she possibly could in "La variante di Luneburg", a Fabula in musica based on the text by Paolo Maurensig, driving home, on the theme of social discrimination, the words "and history repeats itself".

Milva came from the school of pop "bel canto" — the kind embodied by Nilla Pizzi, to be clear — but she soon broke free of it through her passion for swing and folk music from around the world (it's no coincidence that she made a song by Amália Rodrigues, "La Filanda", entirely her own, the very song for which she is unjustly remembered in the collective memory as "the grandmother of Italian music"), as well as through an innate sense of theatricality.

She was always criticized for "never having been young," and indeed she had arrived at Rai very young, winning Italian national television's first singing contest in 1959, coming first out of 7,600 contestants, and at just twenty-two she found herself the wife of an intellectual (the director Maurizio Corgnati) considerably older than her.

She came from the countryside, and certainly not from a noble or upper-middle-class family, yet she went on to become Giorgio Armani's muse, with her dyed red hair, unafraid to start studying German at forty and eventually speaking it fluently.

She was the only one given the chance by Fonit Cetra, and later Dischi Ricordi, to tackle both a popular and a highbrow repertoire at the same time — something that in Italy, where "highbrow" meant only the "new rock," wasn't even remotely considered, except by those who weren't really intellectuals but liked to act like one.

Milva is gone. She leaves behind an inestimable cultural legacy, most of which is now impossible to track down, save for three or four albums still in print, while the rest have reached insane prices online today. A legacy that, sad to say, hardly interests anyone anymore.

I am deeply saddened, and the only thing I can do is offer you a collection of her recordings and performances to listen to and watch. Perhaps it will help someone discover her, reassess her, love her for the greatness that was hers and that we've forgotten too quickly, or perhaps never even acknowledged.

Today is April 25th, and this day belongs to her before it belongs to anyone else in the world.

(April 25, 2021)

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