Milva was my lord’s aggressive carnality, and the intoxication of popular song. The woman who (on stage) lived twice: from Sanremo to Strehler. To her daughter Martina Corgnati, established art historian and professor at Brera, we say that her parable recalls that of Silvana Mangano, from Riso Amaro to Visconti.  «Yes – she replies – but with a difference. In Milva the change didn’t happen afterwards, but during: La Filanda is from 1970, Brecht sang already in ’67; six years later she made The Threepenny Opera and at the same time played a prostitute in a musical with Gino Bramieri ».
Who was Milva?
‘A strict mother who taught me that a woman must look after herself, be independent; a strong but insecure personality, in desperate need of confirmation. She has never lacked unity and solidarity. And she loved me. She was intuitive, empathetic, but she was immediately elsewhere, she couldn’t talk to me for more than 15 consecutive minutes. The separation between her and my father Maurizio, a director, was hard. She was 29, he was 51 and I was 5. I grew up with my maternal grandmother, Noemi, in a horrible villa in Leinì, near Turin. Milva came when she could. She was caught up in her professional life. She lived in Milan with her partner, the actor Mario Piave, who loved children. She was denied in the kitchen, she liked to eat well but once trying her hand at carbonara she asked: does the egg go with the shell in the pasta water? Let’s say that she was able to heat up ready meals without burning them».
The family of origin?
“She was humble, her mother was a seamstress, her father sold fish at the general market, and when the truck overturned years later, Milva’s worry was to buy him another one. My father’s family, who was a partisan, a wonderful man, was made up of lawyers and notaries».
Is it true that your mother miscarried?
“Yes, before conceiving me, at 22. She wanted the son, my father thought it was not the case. He lent himself to do something that he did not want and did not feel. It was even worse because he would have been a child of love. I wrote it in the book that just came out, Milva. The last diva, an autobiography which is a psychodrama because it is in the third person, as if I were taking his place. I didn’t want to gossip and add spice to certain pitiless and tabloid chronicles of the time. But I tell her in an authentic way, even in delicate episodes, for example she was happy to have a daughter but perhaps she would have preferred a son, like everyone in the 60s  ».
– Milva with her daughter Martina
Chapter Alexanderplatz. With Franco Battiato there was a special partnership.
“He was a type of man never known before, cultured, nonconformist, with an oriental education of his own, and a great inner balance. My mother, who was a great believer, found in Battiato someone closer to God than her. I too became a friend of Franco, he gave me a small part in his film Perduto amor, we went to Moscow and they almost arrested us, to enter the Bolshoi we turned to the scalpers, who are outlawed there. Memories about Battiato lead me to successes in Germany».
Germany loved Milva: Did Milva love Germany?
‘He flirted with the idea of moving there, but never went on vacation. She stayed as long as necessary for the concerts. They called her Die Grosse Dame. She filled buildings with 10,000 people, she put on a black leather jacket, they were waiting for her at the exit as if she were Elton John. Many were convinced that she was German. She actually memorized the song lyrics but she didn’t speak the language. She milva culture if she built it with tenacity, she had an inferiority complex towards the academic world.
The friendship with Piazzolla?
«They worked a lot together, he was caustic, Astor made heavy jokes, he was really the Argentine hombre vertical, once he used Milva’s lipstick to write on the bathroom mirror that one of his musicians was gay. Something unthinkable today».
The meeting with Strehler?
«Immense director, denied acting. When an actor was too much protagonist, in rehearsal, he put himself in front because he wanted to act. Milva changed her look, her hair loose and bright red, she treated her like a child, she called her Milvina, it was her relationship between her master and her pupil. On his deathbed, after being acquitted of Mani Pulite’s accusation of illicit use of funding at the Piccolo, during a celebratory evening he said to her: why have we two never had a story?
His mother also got into tax trouble.
«The fuss was raised by a Swiss official, it was a trifle cleared up in a short time, but the news reached the media before the investigation and they shot huge headlines. Fausto Bertinotti said: with the money stolen by Milva from the tax authorities, nurseries could be opened; she was with him, a communist, in the parades of April 25, they paraded together. She saw it as a betrayal. For many years she had a Pd card, it was as if your friends spat on you. He didn’t dare leave the house again until everything cleared up. Milva has always earned honestly and paid taxes».
She was politically committed to the left and loved luxury and furs.
“It is like this, it is part of its discontinuity. She has lived many lives: poor girl from the Po Delta, bourgeois lady in Turin, the redhead of political freedom, the international superstar like perhaps no other in Italy … When she bought her first diamond she was thrilled her. She was obsessed with money, she counted and recounted every fee, every payment made, she wrote down how much she earned».
Goro’s panther was tormented.
“She couldn’t stand alone, my father was her mentor.”
In Sanremo he sang I’m happy: was he ever?
“She was much loved. She was generous. She and she was all ups and downs, she had depressive aspects but she refused to go into analysis, she was not the type, she said give me Prozac and that was it. In recent years she was torn apart by feelings of guilt: both towards my father, left for Mario Piave (a passion that she ended), and for having deprived me of a childhood with my parents».
As an artist, the last few years were difficult.
«He made a good record with Giorgio Faletti, who was very popular as a writer of thrillers, but he didn’t sell, he understood that it was no longer his time. He had a degenerative neurological disease from 2007 until his death in ’21. Years I don’t wish on anyone. He had lost control but until the end he recognized me. The last public participation was in a kermesse to help the victims of the earthquake in Emilia Romagna, in 2010. I donated his archive of scores, manuscripts, records, photos, awards and honors to the University of Bologna. I always listen to his records».
Did you like it better when she was popular or sophisticated?
“I like Lili Marleen, not because she’s more cultured, it’s my taste.”
Read the other interviews of the series «She was my mother», «He was my father»
2023-08-30 05:59:48
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