Mastery and freedom: Mina
Few artists represent the cultural history of late twentieth-century Italy, fewer yet embodied the beauty and power of music with the freshness, irony, and curiosity she does—over sixty years.
I’ll start from her ‘disappearance’ from television. It was August 23, 1978, twenty years after her first public performance Mina went dark. She selected ‘Ancora ancora ancora’ (Again again again) filmed at Bussoladomani in Marina di Pietrasanta, Versilia to be the end theme of the TV program ‘Mille e una Luce’ (A Thousand and One Lights.)
The video, a series of close-ups of Mina’s mouth and face, was censored and modified for the second episode due to its sensuality, allusive and provocative, which still takes the breath away today. That was her last still image on TV.
After the broadcast, thousands of fans stormed the Ricordi stores in Rome and Milan to buy of all Mina’s records available.
“Mina is like an Italian work of art, endless, timeless, but above all unique and wonderful,” says Stefania, a fan. Davide adds, “A masterpiece of Malgioglio1 transformed by Mina into a truly immense milestone in the history of music.”
“A masterpiece of absolute perfection. Pure art that arouses deep emotions. The voice, the sensuality, the woman, the video, the lyrics, the fascinating features of her face, the hands in her hair, the movements... everything perfect. Mina is just Mina. Unattainable.”
Giovanni Fortunato, a fan
But rather than the beginning of her end, the retirement from the then-screen became her true launching pad. How did accounting major Anna Maria Mazzini from a small town in Lombardy2 become best-selling international icon Mina?
Limelight
In 1959, she was the first female rock and roll singer in Italy to appear on television. The early ‘queen of screamers’ for her loud voice and ‘tigress of Cremona’ for her gestures and body shakes turned to light pop tunes and topped the charts in Germany (1962) and Japan (1964), after conquering Italy.3 Mina also toured South America.