Fiorello's Hot Summer

ROME - Stasera paghi te!  This summer it will not be Fiorello to pay the bill, as in the show Stasera pago io, which last summer elected him kind of television entertainment.  But the audience is coming in droves at each stop of his tour that is helping him warm up his muscles in anticipation of the show that will see him again the main character on Rai for the coming spring.  

We reach him by cell phone while he is traveling towards Villapiana Lido.  He speaks eagerly albeit in a soft voice trying to rest his vocal chords for the show.  He admits that he cannot understand why, if he sings and talks for three hours nothing happens but then a simple phone conversation will inevitably make him lose his voice.  The overall opinion is that after eighteen months of a tour that will come to a close in Otranto, is more than positive.  

So, Rosario, you have found the positive raves of the years of Karaoke? 
Absolutely not, the two are not even comparable.  This is truly a theatre piece, with seats and interaction with the audience.  I sing five songs in three hours:  twelve minutes of songs, the rest is cabaret.  The audience does not communicate with me by singing  along but laughing at my jokes, clapping, and what makes me the happiest, changing its opinion of me.  

Has the audience changed as well, then?
It is more mature, mostly over thirty, very few teens.  They arrive, they sit and wait and psychologically that alone changes a lot.  On the screens at the back of the stage are images that accompany my songs, but everything else resembles a television show, even the title, Stasera paghi te, and there is storytelling, gags, impressions, truly a one man show. 

Do you feel complete as an artist?
I am not sure how to define myself:  an emcee.  I have nothing in common with Bonolis, with Conti, whom I consider great artists, but I need to do other things.  And those things that come out of this show and that I will take up again in September, I plan to use to create a television show that I will do in late spring, enriched by a number of guests. 

How do you define this period of your life?
Fantastic, happy, I am doing what I love to do:  entertain people. Instead of being photographed on a yacht I work and go around Italy doing shows, just like I have been doing since I was a kid, in front of an audience, live.  It's the most beautiful thing. 

More than love?
A great relationship in a couple is fundamental.  My love life today is going great and meeting my current partner, Susanna, ha saved my life: I am feeling great, and when se can, she follows me and when not, I can't wait to go back to see her.  I have been lucky to find someone fantastic, level-headed and who, luckily, is not part of this world and does not force me to live like a jet-setter.  And her daughter Olivia fills my life as well and if we will ever have a child of our own, that would be incredible.  What matters the most for me is family and friendship.

Do you keep many friends?
Few but good ones, like those from childhood whom I see every time I go back to Augusta, my native town.

Do you always feel Sicilian?
Of being Sicilian I keep the warmth, the irony, the being male, jealousy and a bit of mistrust in others.  But I am deeply honest and I say things the way they are  

What would you change of television?
There are too many games, quiz-shows and too many are over-valued.  Too many letterine, passaparoline, veline who can do little and nothing but take up space in newspapers with their loves or headaches.  I admire people like Cuccarini, Littizzetto, and Cortellesi who are very good and never appear on a magazine cover. 

Have you put making movies aside?
My brother Beppe Fiorello is already a very good actor and I feel I will make a movie only if there were an incredible project; doing fiction does not entice me and after all it is only fair that people appreciate me for what I can do on television.

You must have a dream in the closet
Well, yes.  To do a movie like Rainman with my brother.  He would be the Dustin Hoffman of the situation because as an actor he is so much better than me, I would be content just being the Tom Cruise! 

Have you followed the awful events of Genoa?
I couldn't understand any of it and those who were not there had to rely on television and on what they wanted us to see.  All I saw were riots, riots and more riots.  I am not taking position but I must admit that the protest has been hardly useful and on top of that we still don't know what the members of the G8 have discussed.  The aim was on voyeurism, on the bleeding people and not one image of the peaceful protest, only black bloc for which other things were of interest.  The great majority of youth don't go looking for violence. 

What do you expect to transmit with your shows?
Certainly not a lesson on living but simply to make a smile come alive and these times need clowns as well.