Milva

Theatre and music in a magical embrace. That's the metaphorical vision one finds before the incomparable art of Milva. Considered the greatest interpreter of Astor Piazzolla ("Live At The Bouffes Du Nord"), so much so that she earned his own "Ave Maria", the Panther of Goro lit up theatres, arenas and TV screens, piercing gazes and enchanting eardrums across an extraordinarily long and simply unrepeatable career. From Brecht, with "Milva canta Brecht" in 1971 and "Milva canta un nuovo Brecht" in 1989, both directed by her trusted collaborator Giorgio Strehler, to her collaborations with Luciano Berio ("La vera storia") and Enzo Jannacci ("La Rossa"), by way of her reinterpretation of Edith Piaf on the magnificent "Milva canta Edith Piaf" from 1970 and the poems her lifelong friend Alda Merini wrote for her, the singer, who has sold 80 million records worldwide, has enchanted entire generations.

A mezzo-soprano with classical training, Milva performed practically everywhere: on the stages of La Scala, the Piccolo Teatro in Milan (of which she was the undisputed grande dame for more than thirty years), the Paris Opéra, the Schauspielhaus in Zurich, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona. Several albums in her career deserve a place among the milestones of twentieth-century popular music, most of them released between the 70s and 80s, such as the German records "Auf den Flügeln bunter Träume" from 1977 and "Ein Dankeschön All Meinen Freunden" from 1981, or the aforementioned "La Rossa" and "Milva canta Brecht". The latter in particular is a work as grandiloquent as it is complex.

Well, within this array of wonders, "Milva e dintorni" ends up channelling her unmatched gifts as both muse and singer. For the occasion, an inspired Franco Battiato acts as guide, bringing to life an album that alternates the mastery of a cultured stage performer honed on the world's most important stages with her desire to also be a pop singer who is engaged, but not overly so. One thus gets lost between "the women of another time, with their slow rhythms, in their domestic rites, waiting for relatives, who on holidays would feign real emotion" ("Le donne") and those who breathe in the silence "on summer evenings when you can't even hear the sound of the sea" ("Il silenzio").

While the lyrics reveal knots to untangle, unspeakable fears and desires to exorcise from a woman full of life, the music and arrangements in turn create a melodic and rhythmic alchemy that stays cohesive at every moment, thanks also to musicians such as Filippo Destrieri (keyboards), Flaviano Cuffari (drums), Paolo Donnarumma (bass) and the sublime Alberto Radius (guitar). Franco Battiato and Giusto Pio put together a formidable team in service of the untameable redhead of Italian song, giving life to nine new wave frescoes. Alongside Giuni Russo's "Energie" - on which Russo also sings backing vocals on the opening track "Alexander Platz" - and Alice's self-titled album, "Milva e dintorni" forms, hands down, a unique trio of masterpieces overseen and composed by Battiato. Three genuine sirens at the court of the Sicilian composer, in what remain perhaps his most radiant and melodically inspired years.

Nine songs, then. Opening the dance is the hugely famous "Alexander Platz". A song that is political in its own way, born as a reworking of "Valery", a track written by the singer and actor from Lanciano Alfredo D'Aloisio, known as Alfredo Cohen, with the collaboration of Battiato and Pio themselves, originally dedicated to a young transgender woman, Valérie Taccarelli, whom Cohen met in Bologna around that time. Three years later, Battiato reworked the lyrics, drawing inspiration from Alexanderplatz, the hugely important square in East Berlin, a metropolis at the time still cut in two by the Wall, and finally entrusted the song to Milva with the aim of making the most of a chorus that had been absent from the original. An instant hit, one that would become one of her most beloved signature songs.

The following track, "Aeroplano", is by contrast an ode to joy, a genuine anthem to freedom, to the need to escape, perhaps by boarding a plane and discovering every corner of the planet one flight at a time. It also takes on Battiato's usual alternation between English and Italian lines ("Dall'aeroplano si vede il mondo piccolo e lontano/ Uh che strano!/ Nord geografico, Nord magnetico va/ Dalla torre di controllo la rotta/ Austrian, Canadian, Bergamasc air lines/ Iran air, TWA, Pan American/ Austrian, Canadian, Bergamasc air lines/ Iran air, TWA, Pan American"). From the dream of flying away from one continent to another, to the protests against war in "Poggibonsi", a song written to commemorate the town of Poggibonsi, liberated from Nazi-Fascism on 18 July 1944 after ten days of merciless fighting. It is another of Battiato's small miracles, one that in some way winks at "Lettera al Governatore della Libia", the opening track of the aforementioned "Energie", both in structure and lyrics: "L'ultimo giorno di liberazione/ Vedemmo i guerriglieri del Bengala/ Sfilare come bellezze/ Al bagno a Cesenatico/ Che voglia avevo di tornare a casa/ Per ridere e scherzare come un tempo".

The opening oriental-tinged notes of "Non sono Butterfly" outline that exotic magnetism Battiato was always chasing, while "A cosa pensi" recalls the memories, mistakes, tears and melancholy of a lifetime, before the fizzy bass of "Tempi moderni" dictates the shifting pace between a slow step and a sudden burst. Throughout, Milva sings like a goddess ruling over the darkness of the night, echoing Piazzolla's own description of her voice as "deep as the night".

Dai campi di sterminio

Che questa civiltà produce

Senza tregua né pudore

Mentre la gente dorme

Ci sarà, non saranno giorno d'armistizio

Resterà, non resteranno gioie né dolori

Le volte che mi pesa

Anche l'aria che respiro

Why is it you never feel nostalgic

for when we used to sleep together?

When we were young!

Milva retired from the stage in 2011 due to serious health problems that prevented her from performing, and she passed away at the age of 81 on April 24, 2021 — by strange coincidence, just one day before April 25th, a date so dear to her, a symbol of liberation that always remained at the heart of her unreachable artistic dimension and its divine surroundings.

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13/06/2021