The Enduring Legacy of Iva Zanicchi: A Journey Through Music, Television, and Politics

Thirty-three Wikipedia pages for Iva Zanicchi. A long, immense career that still does not want to end. And why should it, after all. She has always sung, many authors have written for her. Unfortunately, she tells Corriere della Sera, "famous authors wrote songs for me that were not successful". One is Lucio Battisti, for example. "He wrote a beautiful song called 'Il mio bambino'. Maybe it was too ahead of its time, maybe I didn't take care of it. I went to Sanremo and neglected it. At least, however, I won that Festival". Then there's Paolo Conte. "He called my record company: 'I want to write a blues for Iva'. He did, it was a flop. It didn't go well with Tiziano Ferro either". A different story for 'Zingara' written by Enrico Riccardi and Luigi Albertelli. Luisella Costamagna, age, career, private life: who is the guest of La vita in diretta The encounter with Sinatra Iva Zanicchi was the first Italian to sing at Madison Square Garden in New York. And in the Big Apple, she refused an invitation to Frank Sinatra's suite. "I wanted to meet Sinatra at all costs. My then-manager inconvenienced his mother to arrange the meeting, Sinatra only listened to his mom. I arrived at a party full of people at the Plaza Hotel, there was also the Vice President of the United States. Sinatra was far from me, my manager pointed me out, then he wrote me a note: 'Come to my suite'. Iva didn't go. The reason? Simple, she still tells Corsera: 'I was with my husband. And anyway, I wouldn't have gone, it wasn't the kind of meeting I wanted'. Mina and the other greats And the rivalry with Mina? Nonexistent. "Mina was in another Olympus. We are more or less the same age, but she started before me. She was a breath of fresh air. Her crystalline voice was disruptive". Then there are Milva, Patty Pravo, Orietta Berti. But with one in particular, Iva has formed a strong friendship: "I am friends with Orietta, we see each other often. There is something that unites us: we started the same year from the same place: the new voices contest in Reggio Emilia. Gianni Morandi was also there. It was 1961". The meetings In her life, she has met many greats, very greats like Federico Fellini, Picasso, Carrà, Burri, Yves Montand. "All meetings that leave a mark". And to think that "with Giuseppe Ungaretti we even shot a film in a forest near Salsomaggiore. I stayed with him for a week. Just as it had happened to me with Fellini". Then again: "The maestro took me to special dinners where I also met Alberto Sordi. It seemed like being in a movie to me". Television Then came television. "It was Berlusconi who proposed it to me. He had seen me in the first big show of Canale 5, Premiatissima, a competition between seven singers where Johnny Dorelli and Ornella Muti presented. He was convinced that I should present a show". Only later did she return to music. "Twelve years later, yes, after all the time I remained at the helm of Ok il prezzo è giusto". Finally politics, this time against the will of Silvio Berlusconi: "He told me: 'You will never make it, you are making a mistake. You have a successful program and you will attract the hatred of those who do not think like you'. No one believed I would make it, except a man from Brianza who I brought with me to the markets". To Corriere della Sera she recounts her electoral campaign made of nothing: "I had no alternatives. I did all the markets in Lombardy. No one invited me to a television program where I had always been at home. But in the end, she won again and made everyone die of envy: some spent millions for the electoral campaign. I just fifteen thousand euros".