“With great regret, I did not know Domenico Modugno personally. But for me he was an artistic figure of reference”. And what the director Moni Ovadia reveals to AdnKronos, who has directed the show ‘Mimì d Sud a Sud’ with Mario Incudine as protagonist since Tuesday at the Quirino theater in Rome, which tells the ‘Sicilian phase’ of the Apulian singer-songwriter and interpreter, with Antonio Vasta on the piano, accordion and accordion; Manfredi Tumminello on guitars and bouzouki; Pino Ricosta on double bass and percussion; based on texts by Sabrina Petyx. Modugno took up Frank Sinatra’s suggestion: “Pretend Sicilian! Everyone knows Sicily, everyone knows where it is and then the dialect is very similar to yours, to Apulian. Pretend Sicilian and you will conquer the world!”. And so it was. “I started my activity in the field of traditional music and the Sicilian period of Modugno is a paradigm of stylistic reinterpretation of some legendary pieces, which are absolute masterpieces, in full relationship with the world not only of music but also and above all of culture – explains Ovadia – They are not songs, they are great songs, just think of ‘U pisci spada’ … Then, ‘Volare’ is an extraordinary song, as is ‘Vecchio frac’ and even now I gladly listen to them again. Domenico Modugno is a unique phenomenon for Italian pop music “. The show staged by Moni Ovadia” sees a group of musicians who also interact dramatically, with the storyteller and narrator Mario Incudine, who is an explosive talent: losing this show would be very serious and not for my direction … It speaks of the Sicilian phase of Modugno and arrives on the eve of ‘Volare’, the humble, the pain and the joy of a people are sung. I have already worked in the past with n Incudine, from ‘Le suppliche’ by Aeschylus in Sicily to ‘Il casellante’ from Andrea Camilleri. And his song ‘Vuccuzza di ciuri’, the Sicilian version of ‘Bocca di rosa’ by Fabrizio De André, is truly a small masterpiece, a marvel of wonders: Incudine is a musical pedagogue, very original “. (By Enzo Bonaiuto)