Last night was the grand finale of LP’s visit to Italy with her performance at La Notte della Taranta. The concert started with a minute of silence dedicated to the victims of the collapsed bridge of Genoa, and to those who lost lives in the Amatrice earthquake, tragedy that took place exactly two years ago. But let’s get back to brighter things…
I have watched the whole event, more than 4 hours of folk songs, dances and I truly enjoyed it. Judging from LP’s performance and snippets she shared via Insta-story she had a great time as well, and that she had made some incredible memories. I really love how LP’s manager, Zsuzsa (@zsssss) summed the whole thing up.
She wrote via Instagram: “Last night LP performed ancient Italian folk songs next to a 14th century castle, in front of a 150,000 person audience for La Notte Della Taranta, a televised Italian festival that has been around since the 80s. It aired LIVE on national television. ”
“She spent countless days learning Italian so she could sing and speak these lyrics fluently and honor their Italian tradition. It was beautiful and memorable and I’ve never seen someone learn a new language so goddamn fast and not only nail it but SING IT! Wow.”
First LP sang re-arranged version of her biggest hit (so far), “Lost On You”, in the first part she seemed (to me) very nervous, but after a while she relaxed and finished really strong. Next was emotional rendition of Italian love song, “Vorrei Volare”, which translates to “I wish I could fly”/”I would like to fly”.
I asked Grisu if she knew anything about the origins of this song, as I really liked the emotions it carried, she wrote that it is a song of the popular tradition of Salento. The song was sung in the countryside during the harvest of the products of the earth. It belongs to the folk tradition and only in recent years has been valued as an artistic form.
I really believe LP did justice to the melody as well as Italian words in this song. Not that I know Italian, but that’s how I felt when she sang it. Then was one more folk song, titled “Pizzicarella Mia”- Pizzicarella is a dance of courtship and competition among young men, deriving its movement traditionally from the bite of the tarantula spider.
That’s why LP was joined by dancers on the stage and oh boy, how much fun they all had! That one was also great and joy to listen! I can only imagined what LP’s Italian fans must have felt seeing LP having that much fun and singing in their own language! A memory for the books for sure! Ps: If you’d like to know more about this dance, here‘s great article!
For the finale of the concert there was a surprise, at least to me, as Andrea Mirò – this year’s musical/artistic director of the event was joined on stage by all of the performers, including LP and they all sang “Kalinifta/Kalinitta”, another traditional folk song. This song resulted with some great dance moves from LP!
If you missed this, you can either watch the movies I have cut from the live feed or re-watch the whole thing at Rai 5 TV by clicking here. During the concert there was also tiny interview with LP, you will find it also at my Youtube, click here. For gallery of official pics from the event, click here.
Anna from Poland. I have been a blogger for a long time, but more in a royal field. Since 'meeting' LP through her music and as a person, a lot has changed. If I'm not working on my blog, I work as a teacher. I love to travel, read & dance. I sing & play uke when no one listens. Music was always a big part of my life.