Red shirt and jeans – perhaps also a tribute to the colors of Etna – after the blue and white debut outfit in “his” Naples, chosen as the first stage of his return to the scene after the long stop. The “Nina sings in theaters” tour began last March 2nd and, after the Conciliazione Auditorium in Rome, she went on stage at the Metropolitan in Catania, with low lights, crossing the entire corridor of the stalls.
She started again among people, Angelina Mango. «You saved me», she repeats like a mantra immediately after surprising everyone with an unreleased arrangement of “La Noia”, which “unleashes” a choreography of sheets with the writing “Welcome back Nina”. And welcome back indeed. Quite changed. And this is why perhaps she chose to render some of her hits differently, such as “Che t’o dico a fa” and “Melodrama”, making room for an album, “Caramè”, which is a confession of love and fragility, the portrait of a pop anti-diva, and more. Angelina is liked this way, because – as someone shouted at her from the audience – she sings about pain, even pain, without shame, but with such passion and emotion that it shatters voices and hearts. Because Angelina will grow up, but her voice is already unattainable at times; because the emotions he sings speak to everyone: teenagers and adults. Because Nina is both human and angelic, delicate and powerful, thoughtful and overwhelming.
«I have a difficult character, lots of mood swings», he makes no secret, thanking his band, which is almost an orchestra: his brother Filippo Mango on drums, Umberto Scaramozza on guitar, Filippo Tost on bass and double bass, Marta Canuscio on percussion and wind synth, Davide Rasetti on piano and keyboards, Giulia Gentile on cello, Sofia Volpiana on violin. For over an hour and a half of the concert they always held her hand with their gaze: they were shoulder and hug. Together with Henna, the sister-friend to whom Angelina dedicated what she defined as her most beautiful love song, “My Love”, and with whom she duetted in “so-so-so”. A stage transformed into her bedroom: the bunk bed, the mirrors, the shelves with flowers and books.
That family atmosphere, that family and those roots, sung among treasures and scars. That intimate and infinite love of a daughter that made everyone stand up at the end of “Like a child”. The tragic and indestructible sharing that made us cry and move with “Edmond and Lucy” and “Indian Row”. The voids, the growth, the vulnerability – sung with the flavor of tango and rap – in “Pacco fragili”, but also in the songs “Aiaiai”, “La vita va presa a mors”, “Tutto all’aria”, “Bomba a mano” and “Velo sullocchi”. The painful and resigned farewell of “Empty hands”, “We missed the end” and “With untied shoes”. The manifesto of his return is certainly “7up”. “He’s not a star, not even by mistake – he says – he’s a freshman for life”. Bow.
In a world of performance music, Angelina Mango has chosen the sensitive authenticity of those who know that you cannot be perfect, but you grow. In life as on a stage. Today the Sicilian encore, last stop on the island, at the Golden theater in Palermo.
