Tributes pour in for Milva, beloved Italian singer, who has died aged 81

'Milva the Red' was beloved by fans across the world

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  Italian singer Maria Ilva Biolcati, knowns as Milva, performs "The show must go on" during the Sanremo Italian song contest, in San Remo, Italy. Milva has died at her home in Milan at the age of 81, Italy's culture minister announced on Saturday. AP Photo

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  This 1965 photo shows Milva performing in Milan, northern Italy. AP

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  This picture taken in Monaco on August 15, 1986 shows Milva, and Argentine composer and musician Astor Piazzolla posing during a photo session. AFP

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  Milva in Monaco on August 15, 1986 during a photo session. AFP

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  This picture taken in Paris on January 16, 1987 shows Milva during the exhibition Les Amis de Velazquez at The Institut de France. AFP

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  Milva talks about her concert in Unicas, the first International Women Best Voices Festival, during a press conference in Madrid, Spain in 2005. EPA

Milva, one of Italy’s most popular singers in the 1960s and 1970s who was also beloved by many fans abroad, died Saturday at her home in Milan. She was 81.

In announcing her death, Italy’s Culture Minister Dario Franceschini said Milva’s versatile voice “stirred deep emotions in entire generations". No cause of death was given.

Milva also starred as a stage actress, with a repertoire heavily based on the works of German playwright Bertolt Brecht. She often worked with Milan theatre director Giorgio Strehler, who directed her in one of Brecht's signature works, The Threepenny Opera, a musical drama.

Who was Milva?

Born in 1939 as Maria Ilva Biolcati in Goro, a Po River delta town, she adopted the one-word stage name Milva. Along with Italian singers Ornella Vanoni and Mina, another performer who used a first name only, Milva was considered one of the greatest Italian popular female singers.

Milva sold some 80 million records, the LaPresse news agency said, and recorded 173 albums. She was nicknamed “Milva the Red”, for her voluminous red hair as well as “the Panther of Goro” for her vitality.

Milva was beloved by fans across the world, particularly in Europe and Asia. AFP

Germany, France and Italy all honoured her with national awards. Milva also had a following of fans in Asia, particularly in South Korea. She appeared 15 times at the San Remo festival, the annual contest to promote Italian songs, joking after her 12th time that she never would win.

One of her hits was the song Alexander Platz. Composed by Italian songwriter Franco Battiato in 1982, it explored love in divided Berlin during Cold War times, with its name taken from the famous Berlin square Alexanderplatz.

Other top Italian songwriters whose works Milva sang included Luigi Tenco and Fabrizio De Andre.

'An artist all heart and voice'

Italian President Sergio Mattarella on Saturday praised Milva as a “cultured, sensitive and versatile interpreter, much appreciated abroad”. He extended his condolences to her family.

Milva, who announced her retirement in 2010 after more than a half-century of performing, lived in Milan with a daughter, Martina Corgnati. The singer's former husband, Maurizio Corgnati, was a TV director who died in 1992.

Music critic Mario Luzzatto Fegiz wrote in Corriere della Sera that among Milva's many talents was the uncanny ability to sing just about any kind of music in any language after listening to it just once.

“She worked by memory,” Luzzatto Fegiz recalled. “In German, she wasn't even able to order breakfast.”

Milan's Piccolo Theater Strehler said it would host a wake on Tuesday in its foyer and that Milva's funeral to follow will be private. In a Facebook post, the theatre paid tribute to her, saying she was an “indominable, sensitive, passionate woman, an artist all heart and voice”.