Singer Christina Rosenvinge, photographed in the La Latina neighborhood in Madrid, on September 20. Jaime Villanueva
The first thing Christina Rosenvinge (Madrid, 58 years old) did when she was asked to devise a stage play about Sappho was to ask herself what was the point of getting into a theatrical project.
“And she had it.
She was a poet who celebrated the body, eros, enjoyment, and on top of that she was a great figure of her time, so much so that she could be compared to a pop star”, she says sitting in the sun on a terrace in La Latina and only a week of its premiere in Madrid, after a summer that has taken it from the Teatro de Mérida to the Grec in Barcelona.
The second thing she tried was to adapt the music of that time to this.
"But it was not a good idea, something similar to Gregorian chant would have come out," he clarifies between laughs.
Ask.
We know the work of Sappho only through the 20 poems that have been preserved, of the more than 12,000 that he composed.
If that happened to you, what songs would he choose to go down in history?
Response.
Sappho wondered if she would be remembered because she wanted to go down in history.
In my specific case, now that we don't know if we will become extinct, if there will even be posterity, other things worry me, like whether our great-grandchildren will have a roof over their heads and not be roasted to death like chickens.
Q.
Is it true that you said: "I don't give a damn about posterity, give me recognition and money now"?
A.
Not in those words, but yes.
It is of no use to the creator to be given importance once he is dead.
We all want to be valued at the moment and not for a matter of ego or personal enrichment, but because recognition translates into wonderful projects with good funding.
That's wings for creativity.
Q.
And do you think you have been sufficiently recognized as an artist in this country?
R.
I think that thanks to having been unusually stubborn and not having allowed them to kick me off the road, as they have tried many times, I am still here and I keep getting places.
But it has been more thanks to perseverance than to recognition.
P.
When you say that they wanted to kick you off the road, do you mean when they tried to make you a
mainstream
star with Álex & Christina or something else?
R.
I mean that they have not made it easy for me.
The industry and a certain part of the media have had a hard time recognizing me.
The award thing is something that has come to me when I turned 45. I don't want to seem like the typical ungrateful artist who, when a multinational has invested a lot of money in putting you on the map, doesn't say thank you.
I am grateful, but I would have liked to have had a
manager
who, instead of looking for €20,000 bowling in a massive circuit, would have looked for me in the €3,000 to make a base.
But since I was involved in a circuit in which the immediate result was sought and to do it in a big way, then my true vocation was being ignored.
Q.
If you look back and see the evolution of the cultural industries, which no longer necessarily relegate an artist for being massive, nor do they have so many prejudices about what is popular, do you regret having opted for being
underground?
R.
Any sensible person would have stopped dedicating himself to something that does not feed him.
But if I have continued, it has been, on the one hand, because I had the economic opportunity to do so, but also because there was an impulse in me that did not subside because I was not aware of the size of the hosts that it was going to give me.
Q.
And what is the largest host that has been taken?
R.
Well, when I released an album, I didn't have a tour and that made me return to almost an
amateur
level .
I talk to him about playing in the most incredible venues in New York and sharing the money at the end that I got 30 dollars.
Rosenvinge, on Tuesday of last week in Madrid.
Jaime Villanueva
P.
Does that saying "How many cumbias did you miss because you went as a
rocker" apply to you?
A. It was not in my nature to be a
mainstream
artist
.
Performing in stadiums in front of 40,000 people requires a lot of ambition, a lot of strategy and a lot of stamina.
If 20,000 come it is considered a failure.
I couldn't stand that pressure, I liked to go my own way without competing on the charts.
And time has shown that it was not a bad tactic.
Here I am, fresh as if it had just begun.
In any case, this year I am going to play on five crowded stages with the celebration of the 30 years of
Que me parta un rayo
[on January 25 at the Price in Madrid;
on February 4 at Sala Para-lel in Barcelona] and I'm happy with the idea that thousands of people sing with me.
P.
And what have you discovered doing theater about your scenic personality?
R.
That in the theater everything is very limited and I have an almost inevitable tendency to improvisation that is difficult to tame because I am controlling.
P.
Would your children say that this is your main trait?
R.
They would say that I am very extreme in certain things and incredibly lax in others.
I am very controlling with food and then very lax with house cleaning and with their nocturnal habits.
Q.
And how do you deal with the idea of your children going out with dangerous people?
R.
I have tried to convey to them that where the fun is, there is the danger and that you have to learn to travel there without contaminating yourself.
Q.
From Sappho we have received a distorted vision created by Ovid and it is not known what is gossip and what is reality.
Of all the things that are said about you out there, what is the one that fascinates you the most?
R.
People perceive me as a very serious person and when they meet me they are very surprised, when they realize that I am very clown.
P.
In a fragment of the work a poem by Sappho is mentioned in which she talks about the fear of sleeping alone, do you experience that fear?
R.
It is a chorus that I put in a song about old age and it is a verse that can also revolve around the acceptance of the passage of time.
"Today I sleep alone" can be an affirmation of happiness and that's how I interpreted it, on the side of victory, of course.
Q.
Is a lesbian icon like Raffaella Carrà considered a gay icon?
R.
Yes, and it is a pride.
It is something that goes back to the times of
Tú por mí,
which many people interpreted as a lesbian love song, which in this specific case was not.
It is true that my first sexual fascination was with a girl from school and my first experiences were feminine, but right here I was talking about another story, about a friend who had prostituted herself because she was addicted.
When I re-read the lyrics carefully I realized that many people were unable to understand female camaraderie without lesbianism.
P.
Are you afraid of being accused of
queerbaiting,
that is, of pretending to be bisexual in the skin of Sappho without being so?
A.
I would say that I have enough experience in the field to be able to put myself in the shoes of a bisexual person.
If you're asking me that, I've had melon and I've had watermelon [laughs].
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