Roberto Vecchioni is exciting, as he has always accustomed his numerous fans in his now very long career, as a singer-songwriter and lyricist but also as a writer and poet. In reality, the different artistic facets of Professor Vecchioni, to hear him converse in the crowded Cloister of San Domenico in Lameziaappear perfectly uniform under the banner of delicacy and that roaring spirit of a true humanist that distinguishes him in all his musical and literary works.
After the National Archaeological Museum of Reggio Calabria, the famous singer-songwriter also presented his latest book at the Lametino Archaeological Museum«Tra il silenzio e il tuono», published in February by Einaudi and already considered by many to be his most intimate and poignant novel. An epistolary book for a story that unfolds from the point of view of a young boy and that of his grandfather shrouded in mystery. And it is the first of the two, in particular, to tell the story of a life through letters written at some fundamental moments of life, in a heartfelt and felt journey of growth, while the letters written by the grandfather are addressed to both friends and imaginary people. «With real friends I leave a lot of room for imagination – writes Vecchioni himself in a note – with imaginary characters only the truth is at stake».
In the afternoon at the museum the professor (or rather, as Gramellini calls him in the successful program on La7 “In altre parole”, of which Vecchioni is a pillar) he first focused on Calabria and the strength of the Calabrians, connecting directly to the Greek origins but not only: «The first Greek colonies were Calabrians, the Achaeans, and among the first toughest peoples were the Brettii, or Bruzi. Lamezia is in my heart for many reasons, also for this incredible effort to always have the strength to get up again, despite the things to the contrary, despite the negative things». And then the note on the nature of the “classic”, as a concept that is not opposed to “modern”: «Classic means “forever”, something that never dies, it always exists, we read it and therefore it must remain that way».
As in Reggio, too the meeting in Lamezia, as underlined by the archaeologist Stefania Mancuso, the director of the Lamezia museum Simona Bruni and the director of Drm Calabria, is therefore part of the broad mission that museums pursue with a view to valorizing and opening up to the territory. “It is the greatest challenge that all museums have – Stefania Mancuso reiterated – that of meeting a new audience”. On “Tra il silenzio e il tuono”, instead, Vecchioni says it right away: “It is I who write to myself”, in the suggestive and emotional form of letters that become the codes to interpret once again the dual meaning of life, the same that the singer-songwriter has always taken into account also in his extensive musical production. “Enough with the story that you always have to enjoy in life – he says -, pain also exists, you can live with it but without ever giving in to it. Writing I had forgotten about the pain, about those things that when you lived it seemed like the end of the world. The beauty of life is accepting it all, just as it is”. Hence, therefore, the “two senses of existence” for Vecchioni: the silences, that is, the moments of habit, the moments to reflect, to be calm, in everyday things.and on the other side the thunder, that is «the continuous tangle of existence, the effort you make to understand, to work, to move forward, the effort to make yourself understood by those who are against you. Each of us has silences and thunders inside ourselves».
Vecchioni had also had great public success at the Museum of Reggio Calabria, again with the archaeologist Mancuso and with the institutional greetings of the director of the museum Fabrizio Sudano. An occasion, therefore, for a happy visit also to the Riace Bronzes, in front of which a Vecchioni moved by the shining beauty of the statues, whispered: «They seem to breathe…».
