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Impressions of Milan, today: Piazza Duomo, the Sforza Castle, the Pirellone, Piazza Della Scala, San Siro, the Stock Exchange Building, the Central Station, the Seaplane Terminal. Impressions of Milan, yesterday: the smoke, the dust, the factories, the workers, the concierges, the music. You decide whether it was better yesterday or it is better today.
In the meantime, time passes, fashions change, people too. Today, youngsters go to Messaggerie Musicali and spend their parents' money drooling over the successes, or alleged successes, of James Duncan and Justine Timberlake. They indulge in fats and unidentified substances at Mac Donald's and believe that life is just about having fun, going out with friends, staying out late on Saturday night. Fashions change, and they are increasingly empty, both in meaning and content.
Milan, in 1975, was a not-better-identified mix of past and present, something was already moving, but we still had space to grow and dream. Before 1975, I go back to school memories, because I was not yet on this Earth: the Alfa Romeo in the Portello area where Visconti filmed "Rocco and His Brothers," the South met the North and the courtyards were full of kids in short pants and patched balls. We started working early (too early) between factories and harmful fumes, but deep friendships were forged between colleagues and supervisors (the bosses, the real ones, were hard to get, and to be honest, no one really wanted them that much). It seems like a century ago, only 40 years have passed.
Magical years, perhaps not splendid, but certainly magical. There was cabaret, not discos, for those who wanted to relax in the evening. The cabaret, the semi-underground one with a capital C, the real one, the genuine one, not the fake and recycled one they call "Zelig" today. The cabaret made by professionals, who then were not professionals, but it felt like they were. Every evening, shows and madness: you saw Gaber, Jannacci, Celentano, Teocoli playing in Quelli, all photographed a second before becoming famous. Snapshots of a time that today, our fathers, claim as their own. And I can't blame them.
There were also I Gufi: wonderful, eclectic, Milanese. Cabaret and music, satire and irony: their leader was the great Nanni Svampa. Anyone who is Milanese knows him. Those who are seasoned Milanese love him. Younger Milanese might not even know who he is. Milanese who are neither seasoned nor young might have heard of him. Great Nanni, a champion of sympathy and spontaneity. Someone who told you things straight, bread to bread and wine to wine. Miraculous, and meticulous, in chiseling the moods and vices of the poorer Milanese society, capable, with few words, of making you smile even when there was nothing funny.
Few records in his career, mostly anthologies. But here we are talking about regional theater, not foreign groups, so the term 'anthology' seems inadequate. Let's say, a sort of professional summation. The most beautiful is undoubtedly "All'osteria," released in 1978, recently purchased by myself. Exhilarating and grandiloquent, yet there are neither special effects nor ambitious instruments, indeed, on closer inspection the music is almost all the same, and the only instrument present is the guitar (except for a few rare exceptions). Yes, the guitar: these are poems, they don't need musical instruments, except for the guitar, the most popular instrument in Italy, the only one that can never be missing in a record. It's simple, but it's simplicity that is the (blank) weapon that Nanni Svampa possesses.
You lose yourself in an unknown planet, in a time that no longer exists, among the stories of an era that made an era: from Svampa's voice, the ancient scent of genuineness transpires, and it is a flavor that smells of life and a desire to fight. With some points of transgression. Like the story of Giovanni known as the Coppi, "for those vices that at eighty he's still chasing the girls," and always gets into trouble, until, by fatal mistake, he dies, ". . . his body was laid in Luigi Mangiagalli street, they even put it on the newspaper how many women at the funeral." Or the story of Peppe, a husband who liked to drink from time to time, even though he didn't have a penny in his pocket, and his wife was absolutely against this little vice of his: "So slowly, so nicely, I go to the kitchen and cling to the jug, my wife, that ugly bum, drink that one - she tells me - it's good." But one could mention a thousand other typical portraits of Milan of those years, perhaps the funniest little portrait is the one (not vulgar, let it be said immediately) dedicated to the prostitutes, to be honest, a bit shabby: "You extend your hand to touch the funicular, oh damn dog, it drops the dentures, you extend your hand to have some support, the wooden leg disengages." Finally, a classic, "The collective canteen": "At the collective canteen go the shaved from the Arena street, Mr. Giacobbe also goes there with Mrs. Maddalena."
Great Nanni Svampa, capable of making us smile by putting our little weaknesses into poetry and irony, a Trilussa of the North who wrote them but then also sang them. Courageous, above all, because he had the audacity to translate some French songs by Brassens, many years before Fabrizio De André (let's therefore give the right credit: De André, in this case, borrowed a little from Svampa), and, for example, the famous "Il Gorilla" from the memory of De André was sung by Svampa under the title of "El Gorilla". Exemplary in being simply out of fashion, a born avant-gardist, he couldn't have done any other job, with that talent, with that face, can you see him dressed as a painter? Difficult, huh?
The impressions of Milan seriously make an impression. There's a risk of falling in love with it. And of being enchanted. With much amazement, and with one certainty: yesterday was better than today.
In the meantime, time passes, fashions change, people too. Today, youngsters go to Messaggerie Musicali and spend their parents' money drooling over the successes, or alleged successes, of James Duncan and Justine Timberlake. They indulge in fats and unidentified substances at Mac Donald's and believe that life is just about having fun, going out with friends, staying out late on Saturday night. Fashions change, and they are increasingly empty, both in meaning and content.
Milan, in 1975, was a not-better-identified mix of past and present, something was already moving, but we still had space to grow and dream. Before 1975, I go back to school memories, because I was not yet on this Earth: the Alfa Romeo in the Portello area where Visconti filmed "Rocco and His Brothers," the South met the North and the courtyards were full of kids in short pants and patched balls. We started working early (too early) between factories and harmful fumes, but deep friendships were forged between colleagues and supervisors (the bosses, the real ones, were hard to get, and to be honest, no one really wanted them that much). It seems like a century ago, only 40 years have passed.
Magical years, perhaps not splendid, but certainly magical. There was cabaret, not discos, for those who wanted to relax in the evening. The cabaret, the semi-underground one with a capital C, the real one, the genuine one, not the fake and recycled one they call "Zelig" today. The cabaret made by professionals, who then were not professionals, but it felt like they were. Every evening, shows and madness: you saw Gaber, Jannacci, Celentano, Teocoli playing in Quelli, all photographed a second before becoming famous. Snapshots of a time that today, our fathers, claim as their own. And I can't blame them.
There were also I Gufi: wonderful, eclectic, Milanese. Cabaret and music, satire and irony: their leader was the great Nanni Svampa. Anyone who is Milanese knows him. Those who are seasoned Milanese love him. Younger Milanese might not even know who he is. Milanese who are neither seasoned nor young might have heard of him. Great Nanni, a champion of sympathy and spontaneity. Someone who told you things straight, bread to bread and wine to wine. Miraculous, and meticulous, in chiseling the moods and vices of the poorer Milanese society, capable, with few words, of making you smile even when there was nothing funny.
Few records in his career, mostly anthologies. But here we are talking about regional theater, not foreign groups, so the term 'anthology' seems inadequate. Let's say, a sort of professional summation. The most beautiful is undoubtedly "All'osteria," released in 1978, recently purchased by myself. Exhilarating and grandiloquent, yet there are neither special effects nor ambitious instruments, indeed, on closer inspection the music is almost all the same, and the only instrument present is the guitar (except for a few rare exceptions). Yes, the guitar: these are poems, they don't need musical instruments, except for the guitar, the most popular instrument in Italy, the only one that can never be missing in a record. It's simple, but it's simplicity that is the (blank) weapon that Nanni Svampa possesses.
You lose yourself in an unknown planet, in a time that no longer exists, among the stories of an era that made an era: from Svampa's voice, the ancient scent of genuineness transpires, and it is a flavor that smells of life and a desire to fight. With some points of transgression. Like the story of Giovanni known as the Coppi, "for those vices that at eighty he's still chasing the girls," and always gets into trouble, until, by fatal mistake, he dies, ". . . his body was laid in Luigi Mangiagalli street, they even put it on the newspaper how many women at the funeral." Or the story of Peppe, a husband who liked to drink from time to time, even though he didn't have a penny in his pocket, and his wife was absolutely against this little vice of his: "So slowly, so nicely, I go to the kitchen and cling to the jug, my wife, that ugly bum, drink that one - she tells me - it's good." But one could mention a thousand other typical portraits of Milan of those years, perhaps the funniest little portrait is the one (not vulgar, let it be said immediately) dedicated to the prostitutes, to be honest, a bit shabby: "You extend your hand to touch the funicular, oh damn dog, it drops the dentures, you extend your hand to have some support, the wooden leg disengages." Finally, a classic, "The collective canteen": "At the collective canteen go the shaved from the Arena street, Mr. Giacobbe also goes there with Mrs. Maddalena."
Great Nanni Svampa, capable of making us smile by putting our little weaknesses into poetry and irony, a Trilussa of the North who wrote them but then also sang them. Courageous, above all, because he had the audacity to translate some French songs by Brassens, many years before Fabrizio De André (let's therefore give the right credit: De André, in this case, borrowed a little from Svampa), and, for example, the famous "Il Gorilla" from the memory of De André was sung by Svampa under the title of "El Gorilla". Exemplary in being simply out of fashion, a born avant-gardist, he couldn't have done any other job, with that talent, with that face, can you see him dressed as a painter? Difficult, huh?
The impressions of Milan seriously make an impression. There's a risk of falling in love with it. And of being enchanted. With much amazement, and with one certainty: yesterday was better than today.
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