At Cagliari's Teatro Massimo, the golden wedding anniversary will be celebrated in the stalls. On Saturday, December 6th, at 5:00 PM, "Golden Wedding in Cagliari" returns, an event that for nearly twenty years has brought together couples who have reached the milestone of fifty years of marriage, intertwining it with the story of the city through film and music. The island voices of Giancarlo D'Amico, Davide Fanzecco, Roberto Ferrara, Eleonora Garau, Federica Loi, and Manul will warm up the room, before finally handing over the stage to Gigliola Cinquetti, the Italian music sensation we were able to interview for the occasion.

Gigliola Cinquetti, for her "Golden Wedding" at the Teatro Massimo in Cagliari is also a debut in our city.

I've never approached Sardinia as a tourist; I consider myself more of a friend of your island, but inexplicably, this is the first time I've come for work.

He's about to launch a rather packed tour. We'll get a sneak preview in Cagliari.

It's a new show directed by Luciano Teodori, my husband, in which we've focused entirely on affection as the underlying theme of this relationship between me and the audience. Some songs in the first half are from my repertoire, but they're the ones I've sung the least, the ones I haven't fully explained. Since I've recorded thousands of songs, what happens to all artists has happened: the big hits overshadow some songs that can then be rediscovered, and that's what I'm doing. Then there are some covers: Lucio Battisti, Paolo Conte, ABBA, Roberto Murolo, whom I consider the master of masters. It's a creative first half; then the second half is entirely dedicated to the songs the audience expects and that I can't help but sing, but that I never tire of singing. At the same time, I continue to tour another, more “classical” show, entitled “Sometimes We Dream,” with a symphony orchestra of young graduates with honors from the Trento Conservatory, conducted by Maestro Molinelli.

Have you ever had the feeling that your songs are a bit like a family album for millions of people?

I received thousands of letters when I was very young, testifying to this. Of these, 150,000 are preserved in a collection at the Historical Museum of Popular Writing in Trento, and there are countless stories like the ones she talks about. Two things, now, make me think about it: one is that I go grocery shopping every day and no one pays attention to me until I open my mouth. So, even when my back is turned, they recognize me by my voice. The other is that just a few days ago, a woman my age came to visit me in my dressing room. When I was 16, I was in Sanremo, she had emigrated to Belgium, and she remembered the happiness she felt when "Non ho l'età" won the Eurovision Song Contest, the pride as an Italian in feeling somehow recognized on a broader, European scale. Well, I think it's hard for anything more beautiful than this to happen to me.

How do you manage to stay in the hearts of the public for sixty years?

I'm very rigorous. I've always been careful not to do anything clever, not to take shortcuts to please the public, but to earn their respect through my work. Now, after sixty years of music, we can say that we love each other, that we chose each other freely and mutually.

What would you like the young people who come to listen to you, perhaps for the first time in the theatre, to take home with them?

I wish they could experience the emotions I felt when, as a young girl, I went to the Olympia to sing and listen to giants I wouldn't dare compare myself to: Brassens, Jacques Brel, Petula Clark... there I understood how the theater is the perfect place to better understand what a song is and what a singer of songs is. I wish they could appreciate this magic.

He told me about his affection for Sardinia.

Well, I've been spending long periods of time in Sardinia for many years, and I'm in love with it. I've been to Gallura, and I've taken some wonderful trips between Olbia, Santa Teresa, and the Maddalena archipelago. I've spent wonderful summers and autumns; I remember a swim in October, the enchanting colors of that season. Let's hope this beautiful occasion on December 6th is the first of many more, with the two shows we're touring these very months.

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