LA LAUDA DI FRANCESCO
Elise Valere: You played the actor
in State Buoni Se Potete, you already made the narrator
with The Carnival of the Animals of Camille Saint-Saëns
and Peter and the Wolf of Prokoviev, and you made the music
of Il viaggio Incantato. (- Yes, the puppets) These experiences
of your past did help you to approach this lauda?
Angelo Branduardi: Oh
yes! evidently yes, especially because the lauda, even
if it is an expression that dates of the 13rd century,
it is indeed much more close to the movies than to the
theater; because in the lauda, it is admitted that the
troubadour is on stage and there are some differences
with what develops on the same time, precisely as in
the movies, rather than as to the theater where the musician,
he is hidden, where there is a scene, there are therefore
the people who speak, people who play and speak together
of a certain number of things. Anyway in State Buoni
Se Potete, it was also a saint's story, that was based
a few hundreds of years after and where it was necessary
to look also for a side a bit catching for people because
a theme is necessary in a movie, the theme must be very
popular and I believe that I had succeeded there. In
the story of Peter and the Wolf, the fact to have read
Prokoviev and all, that it is an experience that finishes
there. Yes, it is therefore the narrator that has something
to see with what I make here but it is not indeed a thing....
and finally, Il Viaggio Incantato, that it is a thing,
rather abstract because the puppets, especially the gigantic
puppets as those, that quite gives a little side a bit
troubling and very abstract, therefore there also I had
thought about that when I made the lauda but the side,
there, is really too much abstract and that must be like
that because if you look at a puppet, the puppet that
even makes a side a little bit of horror, yes, that gives
a very strange idea, therefore you must follow something
else than with dancers and actors.
E.V.: Did the lauda request more
time than the projects that you achieved until there? How
did you conciliate the realization of a lauda with the
tour of Altro ed Altrove that took you a lot of time?
A.B.: Altro
ed Altrove it was, I would rather say, a normal tour
excepted by the painter's fact but it was a tour of music.
Here, it is quite something else. I took a lot of time
there and that’s just, just now that it is more
or less fixed. The rest, during three months, we made only
that to change, change, change. Because it is not easy to
put on stage a show, whose idea is very old, with a taste
that people must understand, and therefore that was longer
than usually, especially in the beginning it was not very
clear, what we wanted to make. That is to say, the people
who proposed me that work, they called that by the name of "musical" and
me "musical" that doesn’t interest me and,
especially, everybody makes that. When I found the idea,
therefore the medieval lauda, then all that was easier. Also
this idea to see a sacred thing, in which we talk about a
saint, and to have therefore a deep spiritual expression
without making the religion of the parish.
E.V.: Francesco is a show that doesn’t
quit to evolve in its whole since its beginnings. In such
an evolution, is it easy to keep constant the harmony between
the various intervening parties of the show?
A.B.: Well,
when you change that, evidently if you change a thing
after you must change another one. That means in such
a show if you change a thing, all the rest must be changed.
That was rather difficult, and we begin to be well now,
to give a reading that would be several things at the
same time but that is only one, therefore
if you make dance in another way the dancers after you
must make recite the actors in another way because the
things must be bound somehow and at the same time if you
change the way of which Santa Chiara speaks, you must change
the people who dance. All is bound that therefore has been
enough complicated.
E.V.: This artistic collaboration
with the other professions on the stage, is that an another
echelon to your professional evolution, just a different
thing, or simply that you are more versatile than before?
A.B.: No it
is not only a professional thing. It is on the same time
a different way to approach music, therefore it is a
bit as the total art, that is even an utopia, and especially
since I make San Francesco, even in the disk, for me
it is a little complicated to come back to the normal
music. That has already been complicated with Altro ed
Altrove because I don't know how but San Francesco is" a point, new
paragraph ".
E.V.: The complex structure of this
kind of show (theater - music - dance - narration) makes
its management on stage more simple or on the contrary
more complicated?
A.B.: The both
on the same time, that means there are the roles for
which you are not responsible but somehow, people when
they come they know that it is not a concert but for
them if the actor is well so I am well. If people are
going to think the actor is bad, me I am bad. Therefore
it is at the same time easier and at the same time a
bigger responsibility to hold.
E.V.: You played this lauda in very
different places, some were very symbolic, others less
easy. Do you approach these different places in the same
way? Is it the same technical
logic than for your concerts?
A.B.: No, there
are more things. There, you see today that is very small
(Manzoni theater) therefore that manages in a different
way that a normal concert because you must make so that
in a space like this one, that is small, the proportions
is still guaranteed then it is always a little complicate
to change of place. There are places that perfectly stick
with the topic, there are some others that don't stick...
E.V.: And there is a place where
you exactly thought "that’s
it ! It’s there" ?
A.B.: Not yet....
Yes, that was maybe Rome...
E.V.: Because it is ancient?
A.B.: Yes...
Ah no, there was a perfect place! But we played a small
thing, and it was in the festival of Busker, in Ferrara,
because we made the true lauda, that means we played
on the floor, in front of the Romanesque church then
there even if people didn't see... but there it was the
perfection of what is a lauda...
E.V.: Having played Francesco from
north to south, does Italy have made you a different welcome
according to the regions?
A.B.: No..
Me, I noticed that the public not really "theatrical" is
a more loaded public, richer of heat. On the other hand when
you make one week, as we made in Turin, in a typically theatrical
context there are more a lot of.... you get bored a little...
We played in Trani, in front of this church of the Middle
Ages, there were more than 10.000 people and there were the
young people who looked at the thing like a fable and that
was a marvelous thing. In Turin, it was much more as at the
theater.
E.V.: Does the fact of sharing a
face as the one of Francesco of Assisi bring new relations
with your public?
A.B.: No, I
begin the show with presenting me: "I am
the troubadour" therefore, more obvious than that...
I find that it is a step in more in the same direction, that
means people are not going to be upset by that, it is quite
normal that I make that.
E.V.: Do you contemplate adapting
your show in other languages?
A.B.: Yes,
in German, surely. That is to say, that in Germany the
people who work for me since more than 20 years came
to see the things and they said that it would be a thing
that would work very well in Germany. Therefore, to this
point, we don't know yet if we make it in Italian with
subtitles somewhere or so well, me I speak German therefore
I could make it, it would simply be necessary to take
three young German actors. That we have not decided yet.
But we consider, that it is sure, to go to Germany with
about twenty representations.
E.V.: French, English?
A.B.: For the
moment, no. Not for the moment...
E.V.: For an agnostic, the constant
work that demand such a show on a saint's face, as admirable
he can be, doesn't that at the end weigh morally and mentally?
A.B.: No. We
take the risk, but music is always something spiritual
in the sense that in music there’s always
the concept of “beyond", therefore it is a thing
that we see beyond the closed door, beyond the wall, therefore
music is typically transcendent. In that case, there is also
something else. that means that San Francesco, also me I
believed that he was someone a few mad, who spoke to the
animals.. And if you read the whole Francescan world, the “fonte” these
are 1500 pages, you see an extraordinary man who invents
extraordinary things 800 years ago. And there again, not
only the holiness but the humanity is so strong that to have
made that, at the moment I don't know what else to do.
E.V.: Does that mean that this work
on a Saint's life as Francesco of Assisi brought you something?
A.B.: Yes,
absolutely, on the spiritual side yes. That means that
you perceive that even if you make a lot of mistakes
on the way that you follow, you fall and all that, but
there is a path of faith, that maybe you you didn't see,
that I didn't see. And therefore, me I am therefore a
sinner I go by there or by there but there is a trail,
an ideal path. And that I discovered it with Francesco’story.
THE MUSICAL APPROACH
E.V.: Reguarding your musical activities, can you talk about
your projects reguarding Futuro Antico 4 ?
A.B.: So yes,
Futuro antico 4, we make it in April, therefore I don't
know, it is going to be published in May. It is dedicated
to the musics of the Carnival of Venice. And we will
make a concert of it, on the Piazza San Marco, the day
of the Redeemer's Feast, that is the biggest Venetian
feast, July 18th.
E.V.: Is Futuro Antico for you the
way to approach together your passion for history and your
classic formation? What is your deep motivation?
A.B.: For me,
it is nearby another career. I never studied that at
the conservatory, because we didn't make that, we began
from the baroque... but from the moment where that didn't
go anymore, some years after having had the diploma,
after the conservatory,... well evidently, I am not a
true musicologist, the girl who plays with me, Francesca
Torelli, is a true musicologist, therefore I come in
that with a childish taste, a few like a tourist, in
the sense: "I don't
care about it, that pleases me ". Her, on the other
hand, is very philological and very precise and I believe
that the two things are necessary at the same time. The philological
precision is necessary to look at the result to all level
and in front of everybody and something different is necessary
from my part because they are not going to like because if
it is a thing done like by all others, that doesn't have
anything to say.
E.V.: In 30 years, your musicality
and the themes landed have remained very coherent but your
way to approach them and to present them to the public
has changed. From a more “fanciful" approach
to an approach more realistic of these themes, would you
be with time able of darker approaches?
A.B.: Me, I
don't know, I’m not aware of that. Me
I hope, I know that there was an evolution, there was not
a revolution surely. I hope that there was not a devolution.
But I’m not aware of it. Me simply that when I am on
stage, I am much more calm, I am not afraid therefore evidently
the fear brings the aggressiveness that I had in the beginning
of my career... all that, that doesn't exist anymore, there
is rather an ironic mind when there is a big melancholy but
serene with this taste that comes with age.
THE MAN AND THE ARTIST
E.V.: What is the releasing element
of your enthusiasm for something new?
A.B.: It is
a childish taste, that I’m not aware of
it. It is a taste a little perverse of a child who sees a
jam, that he never flew, that he never tasted. It is that,
that pushes me. If there is not that, I am completely indemnified.
E.V.: This element, did it change
during these 30 years of career?
A.B.: That,
no, it is the same thing. Evidently, it is a little more
difficult after 30 years to find the things that you
never made. But the taste is precisely the same.
E.V.: Your career has brought you
big satisfactions as artist. Doesn't have a price to pay?
A.B.: It has
a price to pay... The talent makes you pay for a price...
That, it is obvious. My professor told it to me when
I was a boy... The talent makes you pay for something. Sometime,
something very expensive... It is normal, because the talent
is a kind of hypersensitivity that from time to time makes
you sick, that from time to time lets you completely without
defense. And then the hypersensitivity can carry some problems.
The musicians, the artists, I know a lot of them, are all
like that. They are always “borderline", they
are always people who walk on the moor and therefore the
price for that you pay, it is that sometimes you fall on
the other side.
E.V.: You make a profession very
exposed to the critique. Are you man to accept the critiques
to evolve or on the contrary to ignore them and to continue
on the way that you chose to follow?
A.B.: I would
say that I read them and that from time to time I find
interesting things. For example, what the Corriere della
Sera had written after the first representation in Milan
was absolutely just and true. And it is for that that
I began to change. But I must say that it is very rare.
In general I don't find any interesting things. I read
things that I know, that I evidently decided.
E.V.: When a passion becomes a work
or when a work becomes passion, it necessarily encroaches
on the personality. What influence is the most important
with Branduardi ? the man on the artist or the artist on
the man ?
A.B.: The man
and the artist are not the same.... That depends......
I would say more the artist, but it is difficult to say
because very often they are completely different. That
means that if you are a worried man, you play calm music,
because you look for the tranquillity. On the other hand
a lot of very “bad" rockers
are very calm people because it is precisely the opposite.
E.V.: After 30 years of career is
it easy to manage the balance between the passion and the
livelihood?
A.B.: It is
necessary to find a compromise... Then, when you’ve had big successes,
you realize that if you want to last 30 years and even
more, you must find a small recess. Small or big but to
know that you cannot always make a superior quantity that
is the law of the showbusiness. And you must manage all
things in the same time. In the beginning, you need a result,
a good result to have after the possibility, I would not
say not to care, but nearly. Because the big number of
people that you made in the beginning, it is people that,
if they believe in you, they are going to grow with you.
And therefore you don't have anything to fear. On the other
hand, if you make the game of the roulette, what several
times made the people that I know, you throw the bullet and
we fear to go to this new disaster that we cannot manage.
E.V.: Etienne Roda-Gil said that
his inspiration, he found it in his child's emotions, and
you, what remains now of your child's emotions concerning
the world in general?
A.B.: Everything. I find that on one hand, I am very very
old, much more that my age, on another hand, I find that
I am very very young. There are both things on the same time.
I am a 500 years old child.
E.V.: Is your age synonymous of
enrichment, or are you afraid on the contrary by getting
old?
A.B.: No, that
pleases me much more. I feel much better in my skin than
before. Because a lot of fears and of problems that I
especially had in my adolescence, in my first youth,
I don't have them anymore. There is therefore much more,
I would call that, serene melancholy, there is that what
I have. Before that was rage, less serene, I was too
much angry.
E.V.: Is life a therapy?
A.B.: The art
is a therapy. And the years that I have on my shoulders,
the last ones, were a therapy, because I discovered heaps
of things.
E.V.: 2004, 30 years of career,
19 albums without counting the foreign versions, movie
soundtracks, fantastic collaborations, so anyway a very
full career. During these 30 years, have you realized your
dreams of artists? What are your dreams for the next 30
years?
A.B.: There is A big dream. But that will be only a dream
but that helps me to live. The true thing that I would have
loved to make in life that was the conductor. I conduct the
ropes from time to time when I make a disk, but I would have
loved that much... maybe one day...
© Elise Valere
