Al Bano has just turned 80, but he says he is “four times 20” when presenting the E la mia vita tour, which next March will take him to five Spanish stages, including the Coliseum theater in Barcelona on March 19. “Life has given me more than I was looking for, the good and the bad,” said the singer from Puglia during his visit to Barcelona this Friday. “Life is like that, night and day, a binary of contrasts, the important thing is to know how to navigate in a sea of storm or calm.”
The author of Nel sole o Felicità - a song that he has sung in Catalan to participate in this year's La Marató de TV3 - will review the classic songs from his repertoire although he has highlighted that his best script "is the audience", which is why he will include winks to every city you visit. “I've been missing from Spain for a long time,” he lamented, and recalled his time at the Peralada festival in 2011 with Montserrat Caballé. "From 1971 to 1984 I was in Spain more than a Spaniard, I like their temperament, the way of living, the culture and above all the humanity that I found."
“I start again in 2024, I have never had a season of artistic calm,” he said with humor when asked about a possible farewell to the stage. Al Bano recalled his recent world tour, which took him from Australia to Mongolia, a route in which he has ruled out visiting Russia even though he has been invited to sing there. “I have met Putin, and he seemed to me to be the most Western of Russians, but I don't like what is happening. Weaponized aggression should not exist in a world that has already traveled into space. Shrapnel, cannons, death, 300,000 mothers who have lost a child in the war in Ukraine. Who will dry the tears of these mothers? The singer has accused Putin of defending “only war” instead of betting on “the best weapon that God has given us, intelligence.”
Al Bano's father participated in World War II, his name is a tribute to Albania, where Carmelo Carrisi served in the Italian army. Today he wanted to remember that conflict to affirm that that experience "has been of no use, for many human life is worthless."
“Each song is a sung page of my life,” explains the artist, who this weekend will participate in the traditional Vatican Christmas concert with the presence of Pope Francis. “He is the reincarnation of Saint Francis,” he said of the current bishop of Rome, for whom he has recorded an album of sacred music that he will present shortly. He has also announced the celebration of a concert with tenor Josep Carreras in Bucharest in September 2024.
With 58 years of career behind him, the melodic singer has stated that the secret to staying in shape is not having vices, “my drug is life, singing and music, which is medicine for people who have sensitivity.” . In his case, he likes to listen to Beethoven, Bach, Puccini, Verdi, Mascagni, without forgetting “the great Domencio Modugno”, a neighbor of his land and author of Nel blu di pinto di blu. “I love both light and classical music, I realize that the ‘mamma’ of light music is classical.”
