Rosa Balistreri
| Rosa Balistreri | |
|---|---|
| Born |
March 21, 1927 Licata |
| Died |
September 20, 1990 (aged 63) Palermo |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Occupation |
singer guitarist songwriter |
| Years active | 1966–1990 |
Rosa Balistreri was an Italian singer and musician born March 21, 1927 in Licata, Sicily, and died September 20, 1990 in Palermo. Her hoarse voice charged with melancholy and strong personality made her a Sicilian icon of the twentieth century like the writer Leonardo Sciascia, the poet Ignazio Buttitta and the painter Renato Guttuso who counted all three of her admirers.
Biography
Rosa Balistreri was born in Licata, a town in the province of Agrigento, in western declined Sicily in the late 1920s. Her father was a peddler and, like many Sicilians of the time, couldn't send his children to school. In 1951, after experiencing the Sicily of Leonardo Sciascia's Candido, Rosa left her native village at the age of 24 years for Tuscany and the city of arts par excellence, Florence. Thus in the north away from her land, uprooted, that she started late, at 39, her artistic career through Dario Fo who makes her star in one of his shows, Ci ragiono e canto. Rosa recorded her first two albums the following year, in 1967 and performs at Teatro Carignano in Turin, at Teatro Manzoni in Milan and at Teatro Metastasio of Prato. In 1971, already renowned Rosa Balistreri returns after twenty years of exile in Sicily, where she will resonate the same stamp powerful voice until her death. Often in dramatic style, her songs depict Sicily as her friend Leonardo Sciascia describes: violent, tender, bitter, sweet, full of ambiguities, in short. The Soprano of the South as Ignazio Buttitta nicknamed her, tells misfortunes but also the beauties and mysteries of the three pointed island. She also embodies, as her friends Amalia Rodrigues, Renato Guttuso and Leonardo Sciascia, a generation of artists joining the communist ideology.
Rosa Balistreri died at Palermo in 1990 at the age of 63, but her work does not fall into oblivion, it survives and modernized through the interpretations of Serena Rispoli and especially Etta Scollo which, accompanied by the Sicilian Symphony Orchestra, takes the most iconic songs of the lady as Ù cunigghiu, I pirati a Palermu or Cu ti lu dissi.[1]
Discography[2][3]
- La voce della Sicilia (1967, Tauro Record)
- Un matrimonio infelice (1967, Tauro Record)
- La cantatrice del Sud (1973, RCA reissue of La voce della Sicilia)
- Amore tu lo sai la vita è amara (1971, Cetra Folk)
- Terra che non senti (1973, Cetra Folk)
- Noi siamo nell'inferno carcerati (1974, Cetra Folk)
- Amuri senza amuri (1974, Cetra Folk)
- Vinni a cantari all'ariu scuvertu (1978, Cetra Folk)
- Concerto di Natale (1985, PDR)
Posthumous discography
- Rosa Balistreri (1996, Teatro del Sole, CD reissue of La voce della Sicilia)
- Un matrimonio infelice (1997, Teatro del Sole, CD reissue)
- Amore tu lo sai la vita è amara (2000, Teatro del Sole, CD reissue)
- Terra che non senti (2000, Teatro del Sole, CD reissue)
- Noi siamo nell'inferno carcerati (2000, Teatro del Sole, CD reissue)
- Vinni a cantari all'ariu scuvertu (2000, Teatro del Sole, CD reissue)
- Rari e Inediti (1997, Teatro del Sole)
- Collection… la raggia, lu duluru, la passione (2004, Lucky Planets), CD 1 et 2
- Rosa canta e cunta. Rari e inediti (2007, Teatro del Sole, Graham & Associati)
- Amuri senza amuri (2007, Lucky Planets, CD reissue)
Awards and Recognitions
- Premio ufficiale della critica discografica
- Premio Tenco per operatore culturale (1982)
References
- ↑ Etta Scollo Canta Ro, record released in February 2005
- ↑ Discography on discogs
- ↑