Ornella Vanoni was much more than a singer and an icon: it was a way of being in the world. An unmistakable voice, unique in the Italian panorama, which from the 1950s onwards has gone through seasons, fashions, cultural revolutions with the inspiration and genius of great artists.
She was also an actress, a refined and ironic interpreter, capable of crossing genres, from the famous “songs of the mala” to pop melodies, from jazz to bossa nova. Over the course of a career that lasted almost seventy years, he published over one hundred works including albums, collections and EPs, selling tens of millions of records.
She was born in Milan, a city she loved and recently no longer understood, on 22 September 1934. His artistic journey began at the Piccolo Teatro, under the guidance of Giorgio Strehler, with whom he had a passionate love story: «I discovered love», he said in several interviews, «with Giorgio. I didn’t know what it was before. When he told me “I love you like crazy”, it was as if the carapace inside which I was imprisoned had broken. I thought: I want to be with him. I really felt madly loved; and being loved madly is beautiful. Even though Giorgio was very shy at the beginning.”
The stage refines her, forges her, gives her that sense of words that she will use throughout her life. Then the music: the years of the first successes, of the songs that will become an important piece in the history of Italian pop music: Endless, The appointment, What is there, The music is over. Songs that have entered the collective imagination and continue to fascinate the new generations. At her side are decisive figures of Italian and international culture: Gino Paoli, with whom she had another love story (“If love is measured by suffering, by suffering, by lack, by a feeling of permanent urgency, well, the great love of my life was Gino”), Vinícius de Moraes and Toquinho, Luigi Tenco, Giorgio Gaber. Her interpretations, elegant and profound, make her one of the great ladies of our song.
Ornella Vanoni passed away on Friday evening, at the age of 91, in the small house in the center of Milan where she lived among the works of her artist friends: Melotti, Novelli, Enzo Cucchi, Arnaldo Pomodoro.
In his memoir written with Pacifico, Winner or loser (The Ship of Theseus), released last spring, and in the most recent interviews, Vanoni had told his story without discounts. Childhood marked by war, loneliness (she was the only child of a bourgeois family), her inseparable kittens: elements that left a profound mark on her sensitivity. He never hid his fragility, indeed he always considered it part of the truth of life.
«Nostalgia can make you die of pain», he confessed with the clarity of someone who has experienced everything with intensity. Yet there was no bitterness in his words: there was awareness. A form of inner sincerity that is almost a form of humility: the courage to look inside without fear.
In recent years, Ornella spoke about the death that she had nicknamed “the curmudgeon” with a naturalness that was deeply affecting. He didn’t remove it, he didn’t fear it. “At my age,” he said, “you think death is close, but without anxiety.” He considered it an inevitable passage, part of life, and for this very reason he didn’t want to transform it into a taboo.
In several interviews he also spoke about his faith: «Yes, I believe in Jesus a lot. But faith and prayer sustain you in life. In front of the Mystery we are all unprepared, afraid, disconcerted. Cardinal Martini, who when I met awed me with his intelligence and his penetrating gaze, said: “My faith is strong but I am a man, and I am afraid”. I imagine my father in front of the Mystery without his coat on anymore and can finally ask for help. I, on the other hand, will carefully take off my shoes, fold up colored clothes and scarves. And, with the trembling, I put out the most cunning of smiles.”
Ornella left as she lived: without masks, without fearwith the desire to leave a sign of truth. And his songs will never stop accompanying us.
(Photo Ansa)
