An Italian ambassador, a cast of Spanish actors and the songs of Raffaella Carrà. Although it may seem like the beginning of any monologue, it is what happened this Friday morning at the Capitol cinema in Madrid. In that historic building on Gran Vía, different personalities have gathered to pay tribute to the late Italian singer, who would turn 80 in two days, and to welcome the musical I dance I dancea show inspired by his music that will have its international premiere on November 2 in the capital.
The show pays homage, but does not copy — “If we tried it would be a bad copy,” the director, Federico Bellone, has assured — to the Italian artist. In this way, Carrà’s songs are the common thread of María’s story (Lydia Fairén, The Adams FamilyMama Mia), a girl who works in television and who wants to be herself and break with the Franco censorship of the 70s. A stage in which she began to dissipate. Proof of this is Pedro (Dani Tatay, Acacias 38) who tries to change the history of television and falls in love with María. The protagonist will have the help of Natalia Millán (The boarding school, One step forward), a diva who has had to overcome the cruel and terrible world of censorship. And finally, under a tough appearance, he will help María. But also with Pepa Lucas (Les Misérables, Billy Elliot) who plays the faithful friend while desperately searching for a romantic love story. A television story that they hope “will make Spain proud when they see it on stage,” Bellone has spoken in Spanish.
Naím Thomas (Operation Triumph, Aladdin, a great musical), and Chete Guzman, who plays the censor and who has been accused of being the bad guy. “I am the common sense of the regime. A lot of joy and color, but we must ensure the philosophy of Europe and no skirt four centimeters above the knee, if it’s two, it’s two,” he joked to the laughter of those present.
Although it is not a copy, the musical embodies the main values with which Carrà, who died on July 5, 2021 in Rome, broke boundaries. The artist was the first woman to show her navel on television in the seventies and her songs were anthems that appealed to sexual freedom and the autonomy of women. “When there is a historical context of oppression, there always has to be a figure who breaks that, and Raffaella embodies that leadership,” said Thomas. Antonio Belart, the costume designer, has followed the same line: “In Spain we were coming out of a dark world and she was a blast in terms of color and shapes.”
Raffaella Carrà was passion, excellence, freedom and happiness. Euprepio Padula, a friend of the artist and presenter of the event, defined it with those four words. To which Sergio Japino, international choreographer and ex-partner of the artist, added: immortal. The only word he said before sitting down in a place where the cameras wouldn’t focus on him. With this musical the idea is to make “a renewed and fresh version that brings young people closer to the world of Raffaella,” explained Gilliam Bruce, the choreographer.
The producer of the musical, Valeria Arzenton, has reported that everything began in 2021, a little before her death and a year after the premiere of the film. Explode Explode (2020) by Nacho Álvarez, which has inspired the entire project. It is two years later when that “dream” has materialized in Spain, but it may not stay here.
The director, Federico Bellone, hopes, or so he has jokingly said, to surpass the 11 consecutive years he has The Lion King on Gran Vía. “Then we’ll see where we go,” he responded to the insistence of the Italian media to know the release date of the musical in his country. The truth is that, although they have not revealed the next steps, they have dropped the name of many areas, including Latin America, and Arzenton has explained that “the DNA of the musical is made up of elements from different nationalities” and his idea is that “Madrid looks out into the world.”
The Capitol cinema will become for the first time a theater in which things happen live and not recorded through a camera. The scenario is going to change completely. Not even Bellone imagined that he could transform so much. Some tables where this morning there was room for around 50 people packed into adjacent chairs, starting on November 2nd it will be a stage with a large silver staircase in which only the dancers already add up to those 50.
Carrà has not only accompanied the actors metaphysically, his face has been seen on dresses and shirts. Furthermore, his legendary head movement has starred in the performance with which the musical has been presented – in which Lydia Fairén and the singer Marco Martinelli have performed the song I dance I dance— and in the illuminated advertising poster that they have planted at the beginning of the stalls, in which two silhouettes of women imitated the artist. A way to unite the art of Spain with that of Italy, as defined by the ambassador of the neighboring country, Giuseppe Buccino Grimaldi.
At the exit of the theater, the audience met a string quartet, made up of violins, in the hall before the door and who throughout the cocktail did not stop playing Carrà’s most famous songs. Party, In love everything is beginning either You have to come to the south to the rhythm of champagne toasts and a surprise: one of the glasses contained a diamond. This has been the technique of Percossi Papi, creators of a collection of exclusive jewelry inspired by the artist, to present this new project.
The most notable absence has been that of the Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta, a big fan of the honoree, who finally did not delight those present with his famous little dances. He was scheduled to attend the press conference, but was unable to attend for personal reasons. But Padula, in her last intervention, winked at him. “Raffaella is known by the educated, the ministers and any ordinary person. “No one has considered her second-class for making entertainment,” said the presenter. Raffaella Carrà has become a cross-class and age phenomenon that managed, and currently manages, to make entertainment culture.
Babelia
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