{"id":308437,"date":"2025-11-23T06:11:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T06:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/308437\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T06:11:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T06:11:10","slug":"ornella-vanoni-iconic-voice-of-italian-music-dies-at-91-dw-11-22-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/308437\/","title":{"rendered":"Ornella Vanoni, iconic voice of Italian music, dies at 91 \u2013 DW \u2013 11\/22\/2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ornella Vanoni, one of Italy\u2019s<\/a> most distinctive singers whose voice helped define generations of popular music, has died at her home in Milan at the age of 91.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Italian media, including Corriere della Sera, La Stampa and the AGI news agency, reported that she suffered cardiac arrest late on Friday.<\/p>\n

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni<\/a> paid tribute on Saturday, calling Vanoni\u2019s voice “unmistakable” and saying Italy had lost “a unique artist who leaves us with an unrepeatable artistic heritage.”<\/p>\n

A defining voice of ‘musica leggera’<\/p>\n

Vanoni was born in Milan in 1934 and grew up in a well-to-do family that sent her to schools in Italy and across Europe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her first artistic home was the theatre: Milan\u2019s Piccolo Teatro, where director Giorgio Strehler became her mentor and, for a time, her partner.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Later in life, she wrote that stepping onto the Piccolo\u2019s stage for the first time was a moment when she “became who [she] truly was.”<\/p>\n

The turn toward music was unexpected, but after being encouraged by Strehler, Vanoni began performing songs about Milan\u2019s criminal underworld, earning her the nickname “Cantante della mala”\u00a0(“singer of the underworld”).\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, it was her appearances at Italy\u2019s televised song festivals in the early 1960s that brought her national attention and introduced audiences to her intimate, smoky timbre that would become her hallmark.<\/p>\n

‘Ocean’s Twelve’ brought new audience<\/p>\n

Over the next seven decades, Vanoni released more than 40 studio albums and recorded more than 100 in total, selling over 50 million copies worldwide.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Among her most beloved hits \u201cSenza fine,\u201d \u201cL\u2019appuntamento,\u201d \u201cLa musica \u00e8 finita\u201d and \u201cUna ragione di pi\u00f9,\u201d stood out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cL\u2019appuntamento\u201d found a new global audience when it appeared on the soundtrack of Steven Soderbergh\u2019s Ocean\u2019s Twelve in 2004.<\/p>\n

\"ItalienItalian PM Giorgia Meloni led the tributes for Vanoni and her ‘unmistakable’ voiceImage: Fotogramma\/ROPI\/picture alliance<\/p>\n

Vanoni\u2019s collaborations across genres and borders<\/p>\n

The Milan-born singer’s musical range \u2014 stretching from jazz and Brazilian rhythms to Italian pop ballads \u2014 made her a sought-after collaborator.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vanoni worked with Gino Paoli, with whom she shared both a creative partnership and a long-rumored affair, as well as international artists including Herbie Hancock, George Benson and Gil Evans.<\/p>\n

She appeared eight times at the Sanremo Music Festival, finishing second in 1968 with “Casa Bianca,” and in 1999 became the first artist in the festival’s history to receive a career award.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She was also twice honored with the Tenco Award \u2014 a prestigious Italian award presented annually since 1974 by the Club Tenco to artists who have made a significant contribution to songwriting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her list of accomplishments continued as she became the only woman to win the Tenco Award twice and the only Italian artist to be recognized both as a songwriter and performer.<\/p>\n

Cultural icon with a sharp wit<\/p>\n

Beyond music, Vanoni became a fixture of Italian cultural life. Her distinctive red curls, elegant style and candid humor made her a popular guest on Italian television well into her later years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She appeared on talk shows, spoke openly about her past relationships and shared stories from her long career, often with what Italian media described as a “complete indifference to political correctness.”<\/p>\n

In her 2021 album Unica, released at age 87, she reflected on ageing, solitude and resilience.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her memoir described her as “one of those women \u2014 on fire, fragile and full of tenderness, hidden behind nervous outbursts, elegant detachment and sarcasm.”<\/p>\n

Vanoni, who once said she wanted her ashes scattered at sea \u2014 “maybe in Venice”\u00a0\u2014 leaves behind a musical legacy that shaped Italy\u2019s cultural landscape for more than half a century.<\/p>\n

Edtied by: Karl Sexton<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ornella Vanoni, one of Italy\u2019s most distinctive singers whose voice helped define generations of popular music, has died…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":{"0":"post-308437","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}