Lifestyle - Al Bano and Maria Scicolone

FIG Working Week in Rome, 6-10 May 2012

My Schwanengesang (Swansong) in the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) was in practice the Working Week in May 2012 at the Rome Cavalieri Hotel in Rome, Italy. Some time after the conference I got two rare illnesses and was forced first to a long sick leave until I retired from FIG at the end of July 2013.

One of the most memorable evenings during my whole over fourteen years in the FIG administration was the Italian Evening at the Cavalieri. The main performer was Al Bano Carisi. The highlight of this evening was the moment when he invited Maria Scicolone on the stage as a surprise gift to the international audience. She presented ex tempore the famous bossa nova song from Antonio Carlos Jobim The Girl from Ibanema. Al Bano and his band made a great show including well-known Italian and international songs. The audience was singing together with him the Neapolitan song Funiculi, funicula (by Luigi Denza) and perhaps the best known of his own hits Felicità, which came to a second place at the San Remo Festival in 1982 (together with his partner Romina Power).

I want to share some of these memorable moments with you. I selected these video fragments to show how stylish and elegant signora Scicolone still is and, of course, how good entertainer Al Bano is after singing at the top of Italian and European show business for more than forty years. He started his career in 1970 and attended e.g. the Eurovision Song Contest with Romina Power already in 1976 and 1985. The last video is about the farewell fireworks from the terasse of Villa Miani.