“I just spoke to her a week ago, on the phone. I asked her: “Ornellona, how are you?”. And she: “I’m fine”. I can’t believe he’s no longer here”, he sighed on the other end of the phone, Iva Zanicchi. TO Ornella Vanoni The voice of Zingara, now one of the last divas of Italian music, along with Mina and Patty Pravo, is linked by a friendship that sometimes leads to healthy – and fun – rivalry.
«I really love him» added Zanicchi, «I respect him: he is great. Now everyone will say that, but it’s true. He is very ironic, and this makes him even more dear to me, because it is a quality I also like. He is very strong.” Six years younger than Vanoni (the Milanese artist is 91, he is 85), Zanicchi remembers well when he met his partner for the first time: «It was 1965 and we were both competing as debutantes at the Sanremo Festival, me with Your Most Beautiful Year and he with Abbracciami’s skills».
That year Vanoni won, didn’t Zanicchi?
“He came second. Then I made up for it two years later, when in 1967 I won the Festival (in partnership with Claudio Villa, ed.) with Don’t think about me. It was the first of my three wins in Sanremo (Zanicchi is the female singer who has won the most at the event, ed.), before the wins of 1969 with Zingara and in 1974 with Ciao dear come stai?».
Is it true that one day Vanoni told about his victory at the Festival?
“Yeah (laughs). He took me aside and said: “You come here with bad songs and you win. I came with the best songs and they sent me out.” He was right. After all, Sanremo is always like this: it is not the most beautiful song that wins, but the most popular song. Ornella is loved. And do you know why?”.
Why?
“He has the courage to be sincere, in this world of entertainment.”
What will Italian music lose with his departure?
«The greatest Italian translator».
More than Mina and more than her, Iva Zanicchi?
“When Ornella sings, she reaches the heart. She can communicate. And not only thanks to her theatrical experience with Giorgio Strehler, who “created” her, as she says, the “Songs of the Underworld” repertoire, consisting of songs related to stories of the underworld and featuring scoundrels and criminals as protagonists, written by great authors such as Fiorenzo Carpi, Gino Negri and Dario Fo. The ability to communicate, to convey directly to the heart, is truly an innate talent in her. has had an extraordinary and unique career. He is an artist of extraordinary cultural depth, whose caliber speaks for itself.”
For example, which one?
«From the meeting with Strehler himself to the meeting with Vinicius De Moraes and Toquinho which in 1976 was the birth of the album La passion, madness, unconsciousness and joy, through Bruno Lauzi, Sergio Bardotti and, of course, Gino Paoli, which inspired Senza is fine and What’s there. Who knows what will happen to Gino later…”.
What happened to “Un’ora sola ti massimo”, which Ornella Vanoni recorded in 1967 and which she, Zanicchi, used to sing during her concerts?
«The people who came to listen to me asked for it: many were convinced that it was mine. And I satisfy them. The news reached Ornella, who called me one day: “Did you know that everyone thinks my song is yours?”. I answered him: “Love, I sang it because the audience asked me to do it”. These cute fights are also part of our relationship. A few weeks ago he called me: “Honey, you have to cut your hair: it’s too long”. “You’re right, Ornellona,” I answered. He was very clear until the end. This summer he wanted to come to the beach for a while, as a guest at my house in Sardinia. But I had already made plans for these few nights: “Ornella, I can’t leave you alone at home”, I explained to her. “Then let’s say I come next year,” he told me. And otherwise there won’t be one next year.”
Do you still have any anecdotes about your friend Ornella?
«At the beginning of the year after Carlo Conti gave me the Lifetime Achievement Award in Sanremo, he praised me in his own way: “You know they gave it to me too”. A few months later he called me and when hoaxes about my death circulated on social media, he said to me: “But what if Iva? Aren’t you dead? They said you were. See you.”
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
