Norma Bruni & Orch. dir dal P. Barzizza – Forse un dì... (Maybe, sometime) Slow fox (Piero Rizza), Parlophon 1940 (Italy)
NOTE: Norma Bruni, although stored in the Italians' memory as infamous fascist song star of the 1930/40s, will always be remembered as one of the most beautiful voices in the history of Italian song. Born in Bologna in 1913 as Norma Mistroni, she was “discovered” by Italian Broadcast official, who was visiting Bologna and heard Norma sing, while working as a kitchen maid she was washing dishes in his friend’s apartment. When he asked her, if she wanted to pursue a career as a singer, Norma gladly accepted. Recommended by him, she debuted singing in a local ballroom and taking professional singing lessons in Bologna and later in Turin. In 1939, she took part in the Italian Broadcast singing competition and she got into finals in a group of future Italian song stars, such as Silvana Fioresi or Oscar Carboni. This meant for Norma mmediate nationwide success, and she recorded her first side for Parlophon with Pippo Barzizza’s orchestra – one of the most renowned Italian dance-and jazz bands of the day. She also charmed Italian audiences on the radio, especially when the 2nd WW broke out and her soft contralto voice encouraged young Italians to take part as soldiers in the “defense of their fascist homeland”. As radio-star, she had been stigmatised in 1940 by her greatest success - a hit “Silenzioso Slow” (Turn Down The Radio), also popular today. In the summer of 1940 she took part, with other colleagues, in performances at hospitals for wounded soldiers and in April 1941 she appeared on waves of Radio Roma with the series of her songs accompanied by war propaganda materials. Her short career - so misfortunalety contaminated by the dirt of politics - against which she, a simple lower-class girl, had not been immunized by any critical thinking - was abruptly ended with the end of war, leaving her with legacyof a handful of 78 rpm records, which she cut between 1939 – 1942. The number of her recordings was increased in 1958 by two 45 rpm’s, when Norma Bruni unsuccessfully tried to come back into vogue. In 1971 she died in Milan totally forgotten, irrespective of a few brief appearances on the RAI television in 1960s. Today in Italy, on the wave of new fascination with interwar period and with the World War 2, increases the interest in Norma Bruni’s life and career. Her helpless attitude towards the wave of her huge nationwide success - which had been, from the very beginning manipulated by the politics and the media - and then the disaster, her injudicious commitment has earned to her great talent - seems to fit in many important questions regarding also our time. A best-selling book “Norma Bruni: a 'voice of flesh' in Italy in the war\" , has recently been published in Italy.
