Ornella Vanoni’s Final Thoughts: A Last Interview
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Ornella Vanoni died on the evening of Friday 21 November, in Milan.We are republishing her last interview with Corriere. “Mina, my friend? I would say that we were excellent acquaintances… She would say to me: ‘darling, I see you look a little worn…”
Ornella Vanoni he lives in a small but light-filled, restful house in the center of Milan, among the works of his artist friends: melotti, Novelli, enzo Cucchi, Arnaldo Pomodoro. “The house before, in Largo Treves, was much nicer. But I had to sell it.”
Why?
“I was left with thirty euros in my account.”
How come?
«Family reasons. Pay this, pay that… but I don’t care.”
She is from an upper-class family.
«But then the war came. my father had two factories bombed. We evacuated to Varese.”
How do you remember the war?
«As a child you have no sense of death. For my parents it was a tragedy; but I had fun.At sc
“Several visions” – A Life of Love, Loss, and Scandal
What vices? Women? Drugs?
“Several visions”.
Did you suffer a lot?
“No. Either you follow your man,or you leave him. If your man takes cocaine, you can’t scold him every time: either you catch up, or it all ends. It can’t go like in Pulp Fiction, were one is very excited because he does coke and the other is dejected because he smoked a joint… At the time it was a scandal. Then Milan became the kingdom of cocaine.”
And law?
“It’s not for me: I need to be calmed, not excited. So I left Strehler and went to Spoleto, which was Visconti’s world. There I had a quick flirtation with Renato Salvatori, the one from Poveri ma belli.”
A double betrayal: artistic and sentimental.
“It was an unimportant story, but Strehler called desperately: “I can’t live with you, I can’t live without you!””
How many men did he have?
“A bit’.”
How many did she really fall in love with?
“Four. Strehler, gino Paoli and two others. And I stayed in touch with all of them. Oh God, with Strehler until he died.”
And her husband, the producer Lucio Ardenzi?
“I never loved him.”
Why did she marry him then?
“As I thought that eventually, sooner or later you have to get married. I had had consumption. Promptly after Strehler; but he didn’t attack me, let’s be clear! I had lived for a year and a half in the mountains, near Sestriere, with two dogs, a wolf and a cocker. A beautiful period: I returned as a flower. But I needed affection,hugs.”
A son, Cristiano, was born.
“I rebuilt the relationship with him over time. He thought that every time I abandoned him for the glittering world of show business.I think it happens to all mothers: it’s difficult to explain to a child that you have to work, but that doesn’t mean you prefer work to him.”
Gino Paoli told me that thanks to her he learned to make love.
“It’s true,he told me. But he also says that as of me he started drinking and smoking. And this, I assure you, is not true.”
Ornella Vanoni: A Life Between a Setter and a Boxer
Ornella Vanoni, a name synonymous with Italian song, recounts a curious observation made during a session in a hyperbaric chamber. A friend, playfully ruffling her hair, declared, “It looks like a setter, but instead it’s a boxer! It’s my boxer!” This sparked a reflection on her own nature: “The setter has style, elegance. The boxer is a rascal in need of affection and tenderness.” And Vanoni, with characteristic self-awareness, simply states, “I can be both.”
The conversation meanders through a life richly lived, touching upon tragic events like the suicide of Luigi Tenco. Vanoni, present at the 1967 Sanremo Festival, recalls a chilling premonition.”Maybe he wanted to imitate Gino,” she muses, referencing Gino Negri.”He was definitely high on pronox and had drunk a bottle of calvados… When I saw him I ran towards him, he looked up, his pupils were dilated, I understood.” She alerted Dalida and her team to exercise caution, and recounts that Lucio Dalla discovered Tenco’s body. Had she known, she confesses, she would have refused to perform.
The narrative then shifts to post-war Milan,a city stripped bare yet brimming with possibility.”fantastic,” she remembers, “Even if there wasn’t a single plant left: the Milanese had burned them all to keep warm.” Despite the hardship, it was a time of remarkable encounters. She fondly remembers Giorgio Gaber, “a man of infinite sweetness, talented, ironic,” and Enzo Jannacci, whose presence invariably lifted her spirits. Gaber, she recalls, once playfully questioned whether Jannacci was a genius or an idiot.
Vanoni delves into the origins of “mob songs,” a genre born from a suggestion by Gino Negri, refined by Giorgio Strehler. These songs emerged from explorations of Milanese taverns, with Gaber ultimately writing the lyrics and Vanoni co-writing “Le Mantellate.” The era also saw a blossoming friendship with Laura Betti, known for her interpretations of Pasolini’s songs. Contrary to expectations of conflict, “We hugged each other and became friends.”
Her circle expanded to include Dacia Maraini, and a surprising romantic connection with Pier Paolo Pasolini. Describing their relationship as more than merely intellectual, Vanoni admits, “when I heard him speak my heart beat fast. He had a hollow face that reminded me of Eduardo De Filippo.” Though, she acknowledges Pasolini’s complex relationship with women, revealing, “He would never have touched a woman, as in every woman he saw his mother.”
Renato Carosone, Berlusconi, and Battling Depression: A Glimpse into Mina’s Reflections
Did you know him well?
“the first time he came to dinner with my partner at the time, who worked at Rothschild. Berlusconi was just an entrepreneur,he had a beautiful face and immediate sympathy. Then I went to work at Mediaset, but I didn’t like the sketches they had prepared. He called me: “whoever doesn’t do my sketches doesn’t work for me”. But they weren’t his, they were authors! For Berlusconi, though, it was the same thing.”
So you weren’t friends.
“When he bought the Manzoni I told him that it was a bourgeois theater: there were boxes and not the balcony,where the heat comes from,the place for the enfants du paradis. They gave Maria Stuarda by Zeffirelli; I told him that I didn’t like Zeffirelli’s works, he filled the stage too much, there was no room left for a pin…”
And Berlusconi?
“He vented to Montanelli: Vanoni certainly has a temper…”
What memories do you have of Dario Fo?
“He was very nice (Vanoni also imitates Dario Fo perfectly). with Franca Rame we went to Caritas to bring donations, we helped Don Colmegna. The young Sergio Cusani was also there.”
She has known depression.
“My father was depressed, and I took after him.It’s something you carry inside you. He made me feel tender: I wanted to help him, but I couldn’t. He took anxiolin, went to sleep at 9, was awake at 6 and didn’t know what to do.”
How many depressions have you had?
“Two or three. I felt so bad that I dropped everything and went to san Rossore, to Cassano. He told me: you haven’t slept for six months, I can believe you’re depressed. They took care of me. Now thanks to psychotropic drugs I can slip into sadness, not sink into depression. But you have to take them for life.”
But she had a happy life.
“Very happy, and also very unhappy.It’s like a wave: happiness arrives, arrives, arrives; and immediately afterwards unhappiness arrives, arrives, arrives.”
Actually his songs expressed the restlessness, the neurosis, the melancholy of Italy after the euphoria of the 60s.
“An intelligent and sensitive person is necessarily also melancholy. For example, I love the rain: it gives me peace… maybe I should have lived in Dublin.But I also sang happy songs. think of Bossa Nova.”
But there is melancholy there too.
“But in Brazil joy always prevails.In th
A Flowerbed Will Do: The Final Wishes of an icon
But in Italy there is no euthanasia.
«There is always a way to decide when and how to leave. If it isn’t there, you invent it. Aren’t there suicides?”
How do you imagine the afterlife?
«We are energy, and the energy will remain in circulation. There will be no angels singing. But I can’t go to hell.”
Why doesn’t he deserve it?
“No. Because I have low blood pressure, and I couldn’t handle all that heat. I also have the medical proof.”
How would you like to be remembered?
«With a flowerbed».
A flowerbed?
«Who remained of the great post-war Milan?»
Only her and Celentano.
«Adriano is a delightful person, it’s a shame he never leaves the house anymore. They tell me he is afraid of viruses, and it is right: the earth is tired of us. I read that in the future it will be dominated by birds or insects. I would prefer birds, which at least are colourful.”
we were talking about how she would like to be remembered.
«They dedicated the lyric Theater to Gaber, the two offices of the Piccolo to Strehler and Grassi, the Palazzina Liberty to Fo and Rame, the Studio to Melato. There’s nothing left for me. This is why I appeal to Mayor Sala: dedicate a flowerbed to me in the center.”
It doesn’t seem like a big problem to me.
“But there is one condition.”
Which?
“The mayor should…
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