Was one other e book about Mina wanted? Maybe sure, however extra for us, Italians of any age, background, occupation, and historical past. Mina doesn’t want this e book—written by Frank Pagano, Marco Di Dio Roccazzella, and Pierangelo Soldavini.
Or some other e book devoted to her, generally. In actual fact, figuring out her solely not directly, by means of her writings as a journalist for Self-importance Truthful, Liberal, and La Stampa, she would certainly have commented on the creation of a enterprise case about her together with her regular lightness, intelligence, and humor. “There are extra essential issues in life…,” we are able to virtually hear her voice say.
And, as all the time, she can be proper. Life is made up of that very lightness and focus that she has proven from the very starting, in all probability making herself probably the most acquainted face and voice in our historical past—not simply tv, however actually Italian tradition as an entire.
No, Mina doesn’t want one other e book. We’re those who want figures like Mina, who reaffirm a distinct, pure, and genuine paradigm of what it means to be an artist, a girl, a present enterprise character, and a cultural icon. We’re those who want her instance. We’d like extra Minas in our world, and the intention of this work is exactly to determine these traits that make her an important Italian success and a free individual. And we accomplish that, pondering particularly of the youthful generations, or artists simply beginning their careers, or entrepreneurs and managers trying to find their very own identities as they attempt to create one thing new. We’ve an important, fully Italian instance to grasp and comply with.
Hers is an distinctive case. The percentages that Mina would grow to be the beacon of Italian tv within the Sixties and Seventies, and the primary voice ever to exist within the historical past of Italian track, have been minimal. As seen within the chapter by Paolo Colombo and Anna Simioni, even earlier than diving into her story after which the precise enterprise case of Mina, girls by no means had the possibility to depart a mark, both in Italy or overseas, on this planet of artwork or music. There are insurmountable obstacles, rooted in our tradition and historical past, that lead us to reward the composer, the singer-songwriter, the performer, greater than their feminine counterparts. The cliché of our means of doing leisure, artwork, and music relegates girls to a secondary position. Till Mina got here alongside.
She had—and nonetheless has—all of it: immeasurable expertise, ease in verbal exchanges with the legends of each small and massive screens, magnificence, and the braveness to experiment and alter appears to be like and kinds, demonstrating a modernity that has impressed ladies and men from the postwar interval to at the moment. Mina is a contemporary lady, the truth is, a contemporary character, in each sense. There are few born like Mina, and we’ve got had the great fortune to have her in Italy. Is she actually a uncommon gem? Sure, with a postscript, a caveat, which is the main focus of the reflection by Pagano, Di Dio Roccazzella, and Soldavini’s e book.
Actually, hers is an distinctive case. However can we maybe steal a couple of of her secrets and techniques, in order that it turns into regular for anybody to search out their very own voice? In order that it’s regular to have the house to pursue analysis and innovation? In order that it’s regular to silence the noise of social media and prejudice, to evolve one’s id and fulfill oneself as professionals, and above all, as women and men?
That is what’s distilled on this quantity. What emerges is a mixture of distinctive traits, and traits that, paradoxically, are replicable—even at the moment—and that may assist anybody discover their very own path, made up of reality, independence, and long-term imaginative and prescient.
Know-how has solely elevated Mina’s powers of innovation and transformation, in her musical and stylistic exploration. It’s not true that the revolution of synthetic intelligence is our enemy, if we handle, as she did, to deal with what makes us free, human—even from the very persona created by the stage, the place every of us finds ourselves performing daily, no matter our occupation may be.
Mina sings our story, our imperfect loves, the complexity of relationships within the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with a magnificence and magnificence that make on a regular basis feelings just a bit extra particular. We should take severely what issues and fewer, so what’s fleeting. The absence/presence of Mina is liberating and strengthens the parable of the girl, artist, and character that we have to create in our communities, households, and workplaces. We should assist, nurture, promote, and reward the work of ladies like Mina. Sure, “pay.” Genius should be tangibly supported, particularly in an period when content material is more and more free and we battle to acknowledge advantage within the creator. Let this grow to be regular, too.
Writing Mina’s enterprise case has been a present, initially for us, the authors, and for all those that contributed—consultants, journalists, and musicians. Mina embodies so many Italian values, which we need to have a good time right here and keep in mind for many who will come after. We actually wanted it.
