"
Lucio Dalla's first phone call in the morning, at 6, 6.30, was to the Bolognese producer Bibi Ballandi. The second to my husband Michele Mondella
, his promoter for over 40 years. Lucio filled life, working together was the experience most beautiful that could happen to me":
Silvana Casato tells ANSA
, widow of Mondella, record company and press office, who died in 2018. From the beginning with RCA, Mondella followed Dalla, Antonello Venditti, Francesco De Gregori, Gianni Morandi.
"Lucio gave everyone a nickname. I was 'Silvanella', Michele 'the slayer'. While he was doing one thing he was already thinking of others with genius and he shared everything with his staff", says Casato.
"Dalla began working with Michele in '70, I arrived in '77. In the first place - she explains - for us there were the artists".
The group of friends, a family, included
Tobia Righi, Renzo Cremonini, Bruno Sconocchia, the lawyer Eugenio D'Andrea, the historic secretary Paola Maieli and then many musicians, the Stadio and those produced by Lucio such as Luca Carboni, Samuele Bersani , Angela Baraldi
, "she too was in Naples the day 'Caruso' was born", remembers Silvana.
Work, holidays and problems intertwined
.
"When Lucio arrived in Rome I prepared dinner for him and his guests. He preferred hamburgers or meatballs with more types of vegetables. He said he was allergic to carbohydrates but it was just one of his lies. He didn't drink wine and didn't eat sweets. He liked to see films together with our Cavalier king. 'You cook so well that I would marry you even if you were from Brescia', he said one evening. Who knows why Brescia... Once he called, showing concern: 'I put on socks but I don't understand why a foot he stinks and the other doesn't. Impossible to get bored with him".
She didn't talk about his private life
, but "Renzo Cremonini's sister and an architect from Pesaro are two of the stories I remember," she says.
"When I was pregnant, I didn't tell him. Michele had to leave with Lucio and we decided to anticipate the scheduled birth by three days. After Dario was born, Lucio came to me with a bouquet of peach flowers that was twice his size", she recalls.
In Bologna "he decorated the house for Christmas from November 1st to February 28th. From San Gregorio Armeno he brought me three nativity scenes which I keep with a beautiful Pulcinella", he says.
"He was generous and projected into the future. He loved Naples", he adds.
Here, at the Mann museum, an exhibition will be inaugurated on the day Lucio would have turned 80, Saturday 4 March.
One love of Dalla was the sea
.
"On the Islands tour, an incredible boat ride. Once, going with the press to the Tremiti islands, Lucio escorted the ferry alone on a tender. No one knew he was there", she says.
On the day of his death, March 1, 2012, Dalla left a great void.
"Until the night before he was on the phone with Michele making plans, he was helping Pierdavide Carone with whom he had participated in Sanremo conducting the orchestra. That day Michele also began to die. Another difficult moment - concludes Silvana - was when he broke up with De Gregori. The end of a world".