Francesco Menegatti's Memories of his Mother Carla Fracci

Francesco Menegatti is the son of Carla Fracci. His first memory of her is her wardrobe. «Her white dresses, her woolens with which she transmitted warmth. She had a huge all-white wardrobe». He tells Corriere della Sera that his mother's bedroom turned into a workshop with physiotherapists and masseurs but it was above all «an impregnable place, it had its own sacredness. It was so until the end».

The disease

The disease? «She faced it with great discretion. She didn't talk about it, I knew very little. She faced it with the same spirit of sacrifice with which she had built her professional life». A mother who «was not strict: she was welcoming. Authoritative, never authoritarian. Once she went to talk to my teachers, at their request. She was combative. The only time she lost her temper and aplomb was with the former mayor of Rome Gianni Alemanno. She was the ballet director at the Rome Opera, she met him at the theater and yelled at him: it's been a year that I ask you to receive me, I am a citizen and you have a duty to listen to me».

Childhood

A committed mom but who «took me with her as much as possible. I followed her on many tours, in Japan where the audience at the end of the shows waited for her outside the theater as if it were a ritual. They wanted to kiss her, touch her hands». And when he didn't leave with her «I looked for her even among her clothes, in the turtleneck sweaters that looked like snow». Only once did she try to guide him with dance: «Only once, fleetingly. We were walking, she turned and said to me, the Scala dance school, right? I replied that it didn't seem like the case».

Nureyev's pranks

A humble person, born from a humble family. «Mom was on her toes - Francesco tells Corsera - light as a feather, having her feet firmly planted on the ground. Stardom was not possible». Among the things that bothered her was the missed direction of the Scala ballet corps: «She couldn't find peace, she said: I don't understand why they didn't call me. Such a great resource of art and skill was not used. She was hurt. She never told the real reasons». The obvious question about Nureyev. And Francesco, who is now a professor of architecture at the University of Rome Tre, says that «he was distant, egocentric, a cat closed in on himself; once after Romeo and Juliet at the Scala mom reacted, she was bitter, they had known each other for many years, he on stage played pranks, he threw her off balance to outshine».