Milva

On July 17, 1939, Maria Ilva Biolcati came into the world in Goro and later rose to prominence as the singer and actress Milva, who for decades stood among Italy’s most celebrated and versatile entertainers. At twenty she surpassed more than seven thousand contestants to win an important talent contest, then issued her first single in 1960, an interpretation of Édith Piaf’s “Milord.” Third place at the San Remo Music Festival arrived in 1961; the next year she finished second and continued entering the event regularly, although victory never came. In 1962 she commanded the stage at Paris’s storied Olympia Theatre with a program of Piaf songs that drew an ecstatic response. Actor and director Giorgo Strehler soon became a close associate, cultivating her interest in musical theater and guiding her toward a wider repertoire that reached from Italian resistance songs to works by Bertolt Brecht. She thereby became the first performer outside Germany to succeed with Brecht adaptations and also entered film in Mario Mattoli’s musical comedy Appuntamento in Riviera. Her subsequent path stayed strikingly varied, encompassing collaborations with Luciano Berio, Ennio Morricone, Mikis Theodorakis, and Ástor Piazzolla as well as appearances at Milan’s La Scala, Berlin’s Deutsche Opera, London’s Royal Albert Hall, and the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The 1981 release Ich Hab Keine Angst began a sustained partnership with electronic composer Vangelis, while ongoing projects also linked her with Franco Battiato. After Strehler’s death she scaled back stage work, yet kept venturing into new territory alongside Thanos Mikroutsikos, James Last, and Giorgio Faletti. On April 23, 2021, at the age of eighty-one, Milva died at her home in Milan.