Ornella Vanoni, Vinicius De Moraes, Toquinho
La Voglia, La Pazzia, L'Incoscienza, L'Allegria

Laugh at her now that she is old, now that facial cosmetic surgery mercilessly causes sagging on her face, alternating deep and merciless wrinkles with smooth, shiny cheeks and swollen, starlet-like lips, in a manner completely unnatural and slightly unsettling. She was never really beautiful, Ornella, with her elongated face and wide mouth giving her a vaguely equine appearance and her rebellious hair which, far from hairdressers, shrugged off all shackles curling everywhere over her lean shoulders. All of this contrasted with a demeanor that was as nobly haughty as it was charmingly sensual, which among the Italian chanteuses of her time could hardly be found.
Then there's the voice. It's well said that we are not dealing with the greatest Italian singer, a role that her fellow countrywoman Mina Mazzini has always, vox populi, outshined her in. The voice of the latter is more powerful and stentorian, although we must acknowledge Ornella's greater versatility and adaptability to different genres. You might certainly say that Mina has crossed many more stylistic seas than Ornella, tackling genres of all kinds, and this is true, but it's a matter of ways and manners, not subtleties. I would only argue that to the quantity of records and the variety of styles the Cremonese has tasted and offered, Ornella has always opposed greater severity in the choice of repertoire, avoiding overreaching or following the theatrical impulse of her colleague eager to demonstrate the universality of her voice. And when it comes to style in presenting herself to the public, for that, ladies and gentlemen, we have to note many points in favor of Mrs. Vanoni. Her other colleagues frame her and they know it.
And we are in the year of 1976, the fifteenth of her recording career. After four albums in two years, Ornella waits at the window.
The great producer, writer, lyricist, translator from French and Portuguese Sergio Bardotti is looking for a singer, not just any singer but a woman, mature and richly experienced, versatile but with a well-defined personality, willing to accompany him on a project he had been nurturing for a long time, that of translating bossa-nova songs into Italian, and lesser-known songs here, not the New Year's Eve train-like ditties, so to speak. The thought immediately goes to Mina, who refuses for fear of unsettling her audience with an album that would sail more toward a concept album rather than a simple and lucrative collection of songs with three or four famous tracks and the rest as filler. Bardotti thinks of Anna Identici, a great interpreter now completely forgotten, with a great voice and presence but little charisma, also inclined to political singing. Then there's Milva the Red, who however alternates musical experiences with theatrical ones, especially in Germany, where she is adored. Like them, others refuse; after all, bossa nova is associated, and not by chance, with samba, but in Italy, in Europe, to say samba is to evoke the Carnival of Rio and carefree fun, while the genre, as Sergione well knew, was instead a kind of Brazilian blues, prone to minor chords and reflective, melancholic lyrics, what singer of the time with a little sense would have thrown herself into such a project? Besides, bossa was considered a past languor, at least ten years had passed since the jazz giants adopted the Made In Brazil aesthetic to renew their repertoire... The decisive element would be the participation in the record of the great lyricist, poet, playwright, and writer, former Brazilian diplomat Vinicius de Moraes, very often in Europe due to tactical travels outside his country, forced by a military dictatorship that makes the slogan “Brazil, if you don’t like it, leave!” and the arrogance of deciding which culture to bring to the bourgeois elites and which subculture to inflict upon the working classes the leitmotif of the moment. Veloso and Chico Buarque had already chosen Europe to avoid arrests and even physical abuse by the police and government, so Vinicius decides to stay away for increasingly long periods, in open disagreement with the regime that, recalling his past as a diplomat, would like him docile to the new dictates, to convey cultural proposals to the people, supposedly naive. De Moraes takes the loyal Toquinho with him and sets sail for Europe, destination Rome, which he had known well for at least thirty years. There he finds old friends, and Bardotti is among them: for the project, the Poet provides several of his compositions, with Bardotti translating and carefully avoiding the already heard and too well-known, selecting from Poetinho's enormous catalog a dozen tracks that need more than one listen to be truly appreciated for what they are, gentle impressionist watercolors, often mere voice and guitar to which Bardotti would have added a section of strings and wind instruments and an Italian choir, just to update things a bit.
An essential rhythm section, Mutinho on drums and Azeitona on bass, two pillars of dryness and modernity in tradition, capable of making rhythms and passages that are actually very complicated seem simple but perfectly enjoyable by everyone.

Ornella, asked almost by chance, accepts the project, to the incredulity of the Bardotti staff and the criticisms of the music journalists who did not consider her voice suitable for bossa, too refined, they said, for bossa requires a more casual, folksy voice in the good sense (???), while she shrugged and thought of Elis Regina and Maria Bethania, two voices so different from each other but both deservedly leading figures in the MPB scene of the time.
Speaking of the guitar, for goodness’ sake, the guitar. Ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about Antonio Pecci Filho, known as Toquinho, a percussionist of the Brazilian guitar, a pure bossanovista but more technical than Júao Gilberto and more rigorous than Baden Powell, for a long time a composer of great level and artistic partner of Vinía. Bardotti entrusts him with the male singing, basically, De Moraes is great but was never exactly a singer, he loses the note, often isn't in tune, the dozens of cigarettes and daily bottle of whiskey certainly don't help the matter. Toqu has a nasal voice but doesn’t miss a note, an entrance, doesn’t do what he doesn’t know he can do, and musically it’s a great asset... And he plays like a god, also seeming to simplify and make accessible to everyone things that are damn complicated and technically “high.”
Vanoni studies, as seriously as ever, the tracks offered to her, and what tracks!
In eight days the three record the thirteen tracks of the project, one take for each song and it’s done, then the strings and the choir overdubbed, but the three of them do everything live, sem medo, without fear.
And “Senza paura (Sem medo)” takes on the role of the album opener, a mid-tempo with Ornella and Toquinho enunciating the words of a text about faith in the future and the futility of worry in the face of destiny, a typically Brazilian concept... But it is the second track that reveals the adaptation of Vanoni’s voice to the poignant themes dear to Vinicius, absence and abandonment. Here Ornella takes the lead, Toquinho strumming below her singing and she adapts the standard to her tones and makes the pain and the cry seductive, thus “La rosa spogliata” becomes her song, from now on. Vanoni's vocal cords plunge knives into the listener’s heart, twisting the blade to ensure it bleeds.
Whoever listens is amazed, Ornella is still herself, the same as ever, but different, greater, more mature, more complete.
In “Samba della Rosa” hips sway, the rhythm runs, and Ornella and Toqu sing over a simple bass, drum, and classical guitar base, a marvel of simplicity. Then comes “Samba in preludio,” both the curse and delight of Brazilian singers’ repertoire, already a strength of Odette Lara, but Ornella’s bony wrists do not tremble and after Vinicius’ verse, it’s her, weeping the song more than singing it... Then, avoidable, seems the tribute to Vinía, “Anema e core” intended as Samba di Napoli.
The chart hit of “La voglia la pazzia,” cover of “Se ela quisesse,” from the lesser-known repertoire of the two partners, is so well known that I avoid commenting.
The B-side of the LP notes a pair of “duet tracks,” songs complicated by phonetic assonances, Bardotti being a prodigy at rendering in Italian the brasileiro lexicon so rich in color and singsong, and Ornella and Toquinho seem to have always sung together, they are natural in “Semaforo rosso (Sinhal fechado)” and “Un altro addio (Mais um adeus)”.
The instruments fall silent twice on the second side to leave space for De Moraes to recite two short love poems, then welcoming Ornella’s velvety voice holding back tears in “Accendi una luna nel cielo” before “Samba pra Vinicius” that Toquinho wrote with Chico years before, and which the Poet adorns in the final part with his old adage “É melhor ser alegre que ser triste, alegria é a melhor coisa que existe, é assim como a luz no coração, mas pra