Baglioni: "Not singing for three years was a strong absence"

"Hi everyone, my name is Claudio and I haven't been doing a concert for three years."

Like at a meeting of anonymous alcoholics (in this case of well-known musicians), Claudio Baglioni talks about himself - in a pause from rehearsals - just before the debut at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma (sold out) of "Dodici note solo", the tour that will take him for sixty dates in the opera and traditional theaters of Italy and which marks the return of live music.

"I have a tension that takes me away, even if it is not the first experience in this theater, a year ago in full lockdown I took us In this story which is mine, nor the first experience alone, after Assolo in 1986, InCanto in 2001 and DieciDita in 2011. It will be a tour of Italy without bikes, but with tools ".

Baglioni debuts at the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome: "My tour of Italy alone at the piano"

Anxiety and abstinence, not only because it's been three years of not music, but also because "when you're 20 you can take breaks, now I have some more and not singing was a strong absence. Probably this will be the last concert of this type, even if there is a certain urgency to do: four years ago I had tasted the idea of ​​giving the final blow of the gong, because I would like to be the one to play it and not the referee ", says the Roman singer-songwriter , which celebrated its 70th birthday in May. "It will be curious to see people gagged, but still real." On the stage Baglioni is alone, "and if on the one hand there is a great responsibility, on the other also a lot of freedom. The problem was getting the musician and the singer to agree", he jokes, accompanied by the piano which is divided into three ."To represent, in two and a half hours, yesterday, today and tomorrow. The past with the rigorous piano, the present with the electric piano and the sounds that float like air and water, and the future with the clavinova." sort of counterclockwise circle, also to defeat the passing of time. Three caravels that I hope will lead me to the discovery of my own America ". The lineup, about thirty pieces starting alone and ending with Life is now, fishing in 50 years of success," and it's never easy, you fight with cardinal pieces of collective memory. It's better at the beginning of your career when you have an album or two ", he smiles." There are some pieces that surely remain in a distant calendar, others that have had the passport of the time and are current again, while others still,and there will be several in this performance, which instead are much less usual in my repertoires. "Baglioni makes his debut on an important day for Italian politics, the start of voting for the President of the Republic." I don't have a favorite name for the Quirinale , but I have a wish: to do it soon. Politicians need to be in politics rather than spend time debating whether to get mine or yours elected. Italy needs politics. "" I hope - continued Baglioni - that given the times we have lived through, there will be a real easing of the derbies that are usually played in Italy. Enough Guelphs and Ghibellines. The President of the Republic is an exemplary and emblematic figure and I would like politicians to avoid making this matter theyet another survey to see who is better. "Twelve notes only, which after Rome will touch Parma, Mantua, Ravenna, Forlì and down and up the Peninsula until the end of April, is the one that will precede the Twelve notes in the summer (12 dates to Caracalla, then two in Syracuse and two in Verona), "with a large orchestra, an opera choir, my band and other soloists. Let's say that it is the extremes, all and only ".