Maria Rosaria Omaggio, the solo artist from “Oriana’s words”

For many years Goodwill ambassador for Unicef, she is the greatest interpreter of Oriana Fallaci’s work. We will see her again on October 27^th at Rome’s Auditorium in the concert recital that will put on stage the writings and the life of the great writer.

By Tiziana Primozich
Photos by Carlo Bellincampi

Maria Rosaria Omaggio’s  artistic talent that was born at a very young age and in her long career she knew how to face confront the small screen with the right amount of rigor and elegance from which her commitment to work took the steps that took her intense presence on the stage of many theatres. She then went to the grand cinema with Oscar winner Andrzej Wajda that ordained her forever as an actress of great interpretive worth for her astounding capacity to give the public an Oriana Fallaci who is so real that we cannot separate her from the original. A few days before “Oriana’s words”, a concert tribute to Fallaci that once again sees Maria Rosaria Omaggio as the solo artist who is able to adeptly remember the great writer who changed the face of contemporary Italian literature. We were able to reach her on the telephone for an interview. The tone is friendly and welcoming, but what struck us was her beautiful voice that is so similar to Fallaci’s.

Maria Rosaria Omaggio once again brings Oriana Fallaci on stage. From the superb interpretation in Oscar winner Andrzej Wajda’s “Walesa, Man of hope” you never left each other what makes you two so similar and why is Oriana Fallaci a constant part of Maria Rosaria’s artistic life?

I should have played her for the first time at the Benevento Città Spettacolo in 2003, when she was still alive, in a reading from “The rage and the pride” written in the wake of the terrible events of 9/11. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons and even though she had given her consent for the first time, everything fell through. However, even after having chosen to put on stage some scenes from Italo Calvino I dedicated the section  entitled “Who loves life” to her as it is also her running pun. The same recital that had been presented at the “Benevento Città Spettacolo 2003” was then requested and went on stage at the DHL Auditorium of the United Nations Building in New York on November 11^th, 2005, a project that, due to the strength of the pieces chosen came about with the support of UNICEF for the children who are victims of armed conflict. A title that can be interpreted in many ways, but in this case the phrase means No to war and particularly to those who arm children. After Fallaci’s death I was invited by her nephew Edoardo Perazzi to read excerpts from her posthumously published book “A hatful of cherries” on the occasion of the event held on September 8^th 2008 promoted by Rizzoli publishers “Remembering Oriana Fallaci” that was held in an overflowing Buzzati room in Milan. A tribute that was truly due to the great, but controversial authoress of our literature. It was this very interpretation that convinced Oscar winner Andrzej Wajda that the role of the great Oriana fitted me perfectly for his film on Walesa. Mine should have been a cameo role and instead it become that the film’s central theme.

Oriana Fallaci and Maria Rosaria Omaggio are two different women, but you can say they are on the same wavelength. Two lives that incredibly follow one another becoming one the extension of the other, also because the film “Walesa, Man of hope” of Polish Oscar winner Andrzej Wajda

The film was really the crowning moment of my career with the Pasinetti Prize at the 70th Venice Film Festival for my role as Oriana Fallaci. The first time that Fallaci’s secretary heard me on the radio as I read a piece from “A letter to a child never born” she confused me with her, my voice had left no doubt. What we have in common is a deep sense for research, care with words and it is no coincidence that the show to be staged at Rome’s Auditorium is called “Oriana’s words”. I have great respect for literature, what the great authors have written and left for us is important, it is a great patrimony that enriches our soul. I consider myself lucky and my luck was to have been able to narrate stories of great spirituality on the movie screen, such as that of Oriana. What have we in common in our everyday life? Like her I made mistakes in choosing my life partners. I can certainly say from having studied her texts and personality at length that she had a testy personality, sometimes intransigent, but her apparent hardness came about from the from the predicaments with her great loves that hurt and disappointed her so much.  Her anarchy was also misunderstood, she dreamed of a utopian State in which citizens governed themselves and would do nothing to intrude on the freedom of others, a vision of a cultured and sensitive society and certainly not anarchy, which eliminates the rights of the individual.

On October 27th in the Petrassi chamber of Rome’s Auditorium Maria Rosario Omaggio will once more give life to Oriana Fallaci. What more will this concert recital give us?

As usual, I will narrate Oriana with her own words and her nephew Edoardo Perazzi has printed an anthology of the texts entitled “Only I can write my story”. The show begins from there. To know Oriana you must read her and I want to unmask a false myth, it is not true that there is an Oriana before 9/11 and one after. Then the something more is the music of pianist Oriana Pegoraro as well as the images developed by the great artist Carlo Fatigoni that will accompany the text with a play of light that narrates 77 years of life and 60 of work, a frenetic activity and full of incidents. A life marked by a long illness during which her loneliness grew even worse.

Oriana Fallaci left a great legacy, to you especially she left honours and duties.

On September 15th Florence’s mayor Dario Nardella invited me to the inauguration of the square that bears her name, as does the bus stop in the square. It was a great honour to have been the sponsor of the reconciliation with her city.

Maria Rosaria, you have had and continue to have great success in Spain. What is the difference between Italian and Spanish cinema? And why Spain?

When the productions are important there is no difference between Italian and Spanish cinema. My grandmother was a Fonseca Albarez de Toledo, so my blood is partly Spanish. Anyway, many years ago I was chosen by Warner Brothers for ‘El virgo de Visanteta’, the first film in the dialect of Valencia and not in Castilian which was rigorously the national language and the only one that was authorized. Also in Spain, which is in my DNA I consider my second home land, I am playing in “Edera”, the first long television fiction of 22 episodes. The latest work I have done, but of great quality is ‘La sonata del silencio’ from the novel by Paloma Sanchéz-Garnica set in the 1940 in which I play Roberta Moretti Rothschild.

You have often said that you destiny sadly intersects with that of Fallaci due to the failures of your romantic relationships. Do you think that Prince Charming exists in today’s world?

I can certainly say that all my men, never anyone from my work, have always been bad choices. I loved with great sincerity and sometimes at risk to my career. Prince Charming does not exist, but the possibility of a life partner that goes beyond the passionate phase, that goes further and shares their life with you is not a dream. I believe that love is real when you become like brother and sister, when you share, when there is understanding and a love that goes beyond the initial falling in love. Unfortunately in the evolution of our society we have abandoned masculinity, we have forgotten that some aspects of virility must be garnered in other ways. I remember one time at a friend’s house and after lunch my friend, the mother of a boy and a girl, asked her daughter to clear the table. This outraged me and I remember rebuking the mother for the different messages she gave her children. So, I think that the messages and the examples we give our male children guarantee that they are aware of the differences in gender. The role of the male is that of protecting and staying besides the female. We teach them how to do it, even in the minute details of our lives.

For many years you have been a Goodwill Ambassador for Unicef, how do you describe your involvement in the world’s greatest humanitarian organization for children?

Being a Goodwill Ambassador means being one on every occasion and to always remember that it is no good complaining all the time that things are not good in the world. Even in the performance of “Oriana’s words” on October 27^th I expect donations for the children in Syria who have been denied the right to being children, devastated by a war they cannot understand and which harvests young lives every day. I will repeat on every opportunity that today’s children are tomorrow’s adults. We must bear this in mind at very moment of our lives. It is no coincidence that the four words chosen by Unicef for the defence of the world’s children are: health, education, protection and equality. Guaranteeing these four certainties to children around the world means giving them the opportunity to become better, more knowledgeable adults. I want to remind those who are reading this article of the story of Ishmael Beah of Sierra Leone who wrote “Memories of a child soldier”. With him we learnt the inhumane tragedy of those who turned children into instruments of war. But there is also the chance for redemption when the right message from the world of adults, in this case thanks to Unicef, reaches the children who are victims of unscrupulous adults and they are “nurtured” with what is right for their age: health, education, protection and equality. In this difficult historical moment the children of Aleppo and the children of Haiti who are dying of simply of dysentery are in my heart. Sometimes it is enough to protect them, in impoverished areas sometimes a mosquito net is enough to save innocent children. Unicef knows how to achieve the great small objectives throughout the world and it is the only organization of the United Nations included in the treaty for the rights of children and adolescents.  The presence of their representatives almost everywhere allows quicker interventions than those by any other small humanitarian organization. If a child already bears arms today, how can it sit at a peace table tomorrow? Maria Rosaria Omaggio’s social commitment is directed also in favour of women. In fact, this year she is a testimonial together with Beatrice Luzi, Giuliana De Sio, Carolina Rosi, Isabel Russinova, Eva Robin’s, Ilaria Borrelli, Lina Sastri, Alessandra Di Sanzo, Giusi Cataldo, Piera Degli Esposti, Marisa Laurito, Rosa Pianeta and Rossella Seno, of the Solidairy calendar  ‘Donne Impegnate’ (“Women involved”). The authors, Ezio Alessio Gensini, Leonardo Santoli and Carlo Bellincampi of the third edition this year also involve artists respected by the Italian, all are women involved in the world of solidarity.