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Live: Filippa Giordano
Criterion Theatre, London

Live Review
23-4-2002
SashaS

 

Filippa Giordano is an angel with an exquisite voice and matching style

Natural singing talent is all that’s required in the pop world and it is more that refreshing to witness someone like Filippa Giordano. The Italian singer can deliver such powerful, disciplined and astonishing vocal that leaves you in awe. She was in London for a showcase of her second album, ‘Il Rosso Amore’, and managed to spellbind hardened media and cynical industry bods.

It might have been a showcase but the lady doesn’t do things halfway and she is backed with an 18-piece orchestra (mainly ladies and there is nothing sexier that a babe fiddling a cello), plus a conductor. Dressed in an elegant all-black lace-over-trousers (her personal designer is Mr Armani) combo, Ms Giordano used gestures, facial expressions and a vocal range – that can project bedroom-intimacy as well as hit high-C – to take us into a world where beauty resides.

The Palermo-born lady grew up in a family that included a number of musicians spreading from a member of La Scala (her uncle) to a conductor (her bro) but turned out to be a teenager who loved Madonna, George Michael and Whitney Houston. So, she decided to combine the two, sing pop songs like arias and apply opera standards to popular music. But, it turned out to be something special, a mixture that sounds contemporary although it is a way above pop-norm.

Thus, a fusion of arias from ‘Madame Butterfly’ (‘Un Bel Du Vedremo’, ‘Coro A Bocca Chuisa’), ‘Nabucco’ (‘Va’ Pensiero’) and ‘Les Contes d’Hoffman’ (‘La Barcarolle’) rub grooves with songs written by the film-score master, Ennio Morricone. (He co-wrote a song with ex-Pink Floyd member, Roger Waters, for her eponymous debut album in 1999.) Positioned in centre-stage in this old theatre, her alabaster-skin reflecting spotlights, she looked (and sounded) like an angel with big… sex appeal… Pardon, got distracted here – huge lungs.

But, you might find yourself asking – what’s this got to do with pop? Highbrow, or what? No, it is actually musique-sans-frontier: chart-potential sounds co-existing with popular-renditions of arias on a disc spell – elegance and quality. Go, do yourself a favour and get something classy; half-a-million people who bought her debut aren’t wrong…

 


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