Armonie d’Arte festival, standing ovation for the concert of “Alice canta Battiato”

by MARIO ARCURI

The evocative scenery of the Scolacium Park in Roccelletta di Borgia provided a suitable and splendid setting for the concert by Alice, guest of Art harmonies Festival, artist consecrated by the public and critics as the only and great interpreter of the music and words of Franco Battiato.

Next to Alice the Master Carlo Guaitoli, former collaborator of the Sicilian artist who died a year ago and who accompanied Alice by proposing superlative arrangements for piano and orchestra. In front of an audience who attended the appointment in religious silence, Alice and Guaitoli they have proposed a lineup capable of vibrating and moving not only for the quality of the texts and music, but also for interpretative methods that have reached peaks of mystical spirituality.

By Alice, perhaps and without perhaps, talent has never been valued as it surely deserved; partly because the market requires to seek more and more the image and less the contents, partly by choice of the artist from Forlì who never wanted to exploit his friendship and his bond with Franco Battiato, always preferring quality consensus rather than quantity and, we could say, likes. But the public has been able to appreciate over the years, not less during this tour in memory of Battiato, the search for what she herself defines as “reality beyond appearance”.

“In 1985 – he says Alice – paid tribute to Franco with the album “Jewels stolen” and this concert represents the ideal continuation ”. Because, in fact, they are real jewels when they are also proposed songs not known by the general public such as “Eri con me” and “Veleni”, “Indian moon” and “Praise to the inviolate” that initially impact with an audience attentive and focused. Above all “Eri con me” of which Alice recounts the genesis: “I was looking for a mystical piece, I asked Franco on the phone. He was silent for an interminable moment and replied: don’t ask me little, you know that certain types of songs need a certain state of being, of inspiration. After a few days he called me back on the phone and made me listen to the piece “.

The audience then seems to have a gasp and an attempt to raise their voices and be heard, as is done at concerts, when Alice offers artistic masterpieces such as “Signs of life”, “The birds”, “Summer on a solitary beach”: l emotion and respect for silence not imposed but shared, also in this case take precedence. The ovations at the end of each song, however, are as significant as the genuine spontaneity of Battiato’s muse who opens her arms wide and constantly points to the pianist Guaitoli.

The public appreciates that “Poor country” that only an artist like Battiato he could compose “not to forget”, but that sounds dramatically current. He remembers the Eurovision of 1984, when together with Battiato he proposed the fantastic “The Trains of Tozeur”, as well as the famous “The hot summer wind”. “Message”, “The season of love” and “Nevski Prospect”, “For Elisa”. The emotion and spiritual involvement in listening to two masterpieces such as “La cura” and “And I come to look for you”, lay prayers capable of reaching unexplored peaks of spirituality, are impressive. And finally “The era of the white boar” with Alice herself who invites the audience to sing and clap their hands, almost like a new and dutiful homage and a choral voice towards an artist who has made music “a popular sentiment born from divine mechanics “. Standing ovation!