The composer, singer and wine producer sits in a hotel room in Hamburg and gesticulates jovially, talking about "la famiglia, la musica, il vino, la religione", the most important things in his life - it's hard to imagine more Italianità. He only says good things: he loves the audience, he loves the hotel, he loves touring, he loves his old hits, he loves God, he loves everyone and everything.
He sits there alone. It was agreed that we would do an interview together, but Ms. Power makes requests. First the interview is canceled altogether, then she has to have breakfast in peace, then she can't show her face because her make-up artist has already left, phones are ringing off the hook. In the end, she arrives five hours late - and is forgiven at first sight.
In love on stage, that was once upon a time
It is immediately clear that she is the star of the duo. Warm, humorous, honest, clever, charismatic and beautiful. You wish you could hang out with Romina Power for a few days, chatting about God and the world and cracking jokes. She would be the perfect cool, glamorous relative that you would always have liked to have.
Romina Power doesn't just love everything. She says of the tour: "The energy you get from the audience on stage is incredible, but living out of a suitcase is bad." She also reflects on working with her ex-husband again in a different way to him: "Even if it looks like it: We don't laugh at each other on stage in love at all, Al Bano just makes dry jokes, then I have to laugh. Yesterday he whispered in my ear in the middle of the dance, help, his pants are slipping down his bottom."
"If I allowed emotions on stage, I wouldn't be able to sing. I wouldn't be able to get a single note out." - Romina Power
There is nothing left of emotions. "I actively keep it away - at the bottom of my stomach," she says. "If I allowed an emotional reaction, I wouldn't be able to get a note out." Power couldn't and didn't want to sing for a long time. "I had the singing thing there," she says, making a gesture of cutting her throat and contorting her face as if she was going to vomit, "I couldn't do it anymore, it was choking me up."
The disappearance of her daughter destroyed her marriage
Romina Power and Albano Carrisi went through - and are still going through - one of the worst human disasters imaginable: in 1993, their daughter Ylenia Carrisi graduated from her literature degree in London with the highest marks in her year. She wanted to become a writer and set off to discover the world - with a backpack and a notebook. She disappeared on this journey at the age of 23. She was last seen in early 1994 near New Orleans in the US state of Louisiana.
While Romina Power always insisted that her daughter was still alive, Albano Carrisi fought to have her declared dead - also so that he could say goodbye. In 2013, an Italian court also ordered this. An action that Romina Power was unable to forgive her ex-husband for a long time: "If they had asked me a few years ago whether I would ever be on stage with Albano again - I was so angry with him, never!" But now, with distance, she even likes the old songs again.
The pillars are religion and creativity
What has changed? "Years ago, I discovered religion in the middle of Miami's den of iniquity," says Power. Buddhism. She has been meditating ever since. And mediation has saved her life - and helped her to forgive. "Meditation changes the brain. I can really only recommend it to anyone, you become a better person. And above all, a happier one."
