“The conductor!”. Pippo Baudo, 85 years old on Monday – was born on 7 June 1936 in Militello in the province of Catania – and a very long and ‘very wide’ career, studded with successes and audiences, he confesses to AdnKronos which of the many commitments and roles he had in his artistic life he never covered and on which he would have wanted so much to measure himself: “Without a doubt, I wanted to be a conductor – confesses the Sicilian presenter, without thinking about it even for a moment – It is really something to which I have been so attached but which unfortunately I have never managed to achieve: in this sense I envied the skill of Pippo Caruso, the conductor with whom I made a strong friendship. Conducting so many musicians is truly an indescribable emotion: I only know how to play the piano “.
Ever done, not even as a test or as a joke? “No, I’ve never tried: you don’t mess with serious things; they seem easy gestures but it is one of the most difficult professions, as also taught Fellini’s film, ‘Orchestra Rehearsal’, a very hard film. “Even conductors often are …” It’s true: I met From Karajan, I know the Master well Riccardo Muti, all people with a very strong character – observes Baudo – In Rai, I have wonderful memories of Upper Kramer, an absolute genius, of Bruno Camphora, of Enrico Simonetti, of Lelio Luttazzi and then there is still the very good Beppe Vessicchio“.
The thing he is most proud of, professionally, “is to have created so many programs even more than to have then presented them. I recognize myself a good dose of imagination …”, he admits without false modesty. And to the other members of the historic ‘four musketeers’ – with Pippo Baudo, too Mike Bongiorno, Corrado and Enzo Tortora – as the four best presenters and most present on TV were then defined, what does the King of Presenters? “To Corrado certainly the innate sympathy, the irony; to Tortora his great culture; to Mike the method and the professionalism pushed to the maximum. For me, as a personal quality, I keep close imagination and taste and the art of improvisation“.
(by Enzo Bonaiuto)