Elio’s new show brings a scientific experiment to the stage thanks to a crescendo of sad but beautiful songs
“Sadness is experienced as a negative value,
While it should be experienced as a positive value.
Don’t make the mistake of denigrating sadness.”
This is what Elio e le Storie Tese sang in their 2008 album Students. Almost twenty years later, the singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist with his irreverent irony returns to this noble sentiment, exhibiting it for the first time in his show “The revaluation of sadness”.
Accompanied by his band (Alberto Tafuri piano and musical direction, Sophia Tomelleri tenor and flute, Giulio Molteni low and Martino Malacrida drums), Helium dedicates an entire concert to sadness. Indeed, much more than a concert, a real scientific experiment.
Elio manages to amaze us with each of his new shows, and the one he is bringing to theaters now could beat them all, exceeding all expectations: it is a concentration of pure originality that once again expands the boundaries of his talent.
“Sadness gives life to beautiful songs that I never had the chance to sing because I always brought out my funny side – says the artist. – I wanted to create a show that restored dignity to this often mistreated feeling.”
The partnership between Elio and Alberto Tafuri has lasted for over thirty years: he was his vocal coach in all his participation in the X Factor. In addition to being a great pianist, with collaborations with musical giants behind him, Alberto has an almost infinite culture. “Comparing ourselves on our numerous travels – adds Elio – we came to the conclusion that it was time to sing and play very sad songs.”
Baudelaire, Leopardi, Pessoa, Shakespeare in his plays or Victor Hugo in his novels. Many before him have praised this profound emotionality. But none of them ever turned it into an empirical investigation.
In fact, it is not a real concert, but a concertn scientific experiment, in which every evening Elio and his band will try to beat the world record for sadness, using a special instrument the precise functioning of which is not yet known. Sort of “tristometer”. A new component also enters the scene, Elio’s degree in Engineering and his scientific rigor, thanks to which we were able to scientifically choose the songs in progressive sadness to reach the absolute peak. The songs chosen – and here Elio tends to specify, even if there was no doubt – will be beautiful sad songs – they will start from his “Sadness” in a crescendo of emotions, slowly increasing the level of sadness, until reaching the triad of the saddest songwriters: Aznavour Tenco and De André. The apotheosis will be reached with a Japanese song.
Once you have reached the peak of sadness, hoping to reach the record, you must quickly return to the initial more or less neutral state, using “elixir” songs that instill good mood. The choice of these antidotes was also based on scientific criteria. The singer-songwriters decreed to quickly lower the melancholy will be Carosone and Gioacchino Rossini.
The tour, organized by IMARTS – International Music and Artsit will start on October 21st from Alessandriato then cross Lecce, Florence, Turin, Bologna, Pescara, Varese, Genoa, Milan (22 and 23 March at the Teatro Manzoni) to end on 16 April in Cremona.
“Today there is a great demand for joy. I have in mind the period after Covid: the first LOL was a resounding success, much beyond expectations, precisely because the lockdown had generated this very high demand for joy. The same thing is happening today. The public just wants joy; I thought it was a huge injustice and I did exactly the opposite!”
Sadness is a healthy and natural feeling, a component of our life, that we all feel or have felt. The only problem arises when it is exploited and used exclusively to create audiences.
“You must not be ashamed of such an ancient feeling, long live the sadness, symbol of a winning mentality” recites the aforementioned song by Elio, but as he himself reiterates – and here he finally smiles – “The refined, beautiful, quality one” that I bring to the theater.”
