COPIA OMAGGIO • COMPLIMENTARY COPY EDIZIONI PRC

[Protagonisti]
ritoriale, un porto franco
della sessualità e del
divertimento, un luogo
capace di offrire esperienze
esclusive e irripetibili
altrove. Oggi quell’odore
di zolfo si è disciolto con
l’arrivo della modernità».
Qual è la forza di Capri.
Cosa la rende unica?
«Sicuramente la sua bellezza,
che è fuori discussione.
Del resto non l’abbiamo scoperta noi
e non è un caso che già Tiberio l’avesse scelta
come un luogo paradisiaco. L’isola è ricca da
sempre di ambientazioni straordinarie, che
poi nel tempo hanno appassionato esteti e
gay».
Esiste una sorta di sacralità dell’isola, quella
che si rinnova ogni anno nel presenzialismo e
nella ritualità dell’esserci ad ogni costo?
«Per quanto riguarda la mondanità, i riti
del presenzialismo che si ripetono tutte le
estati, Capri rappresenta il “cafonal dei cafonal”.
Diverso da quello romano perché
non conquista solo i vip capitolini, ma tutti
coloro che approdano sull’isola. Dalle feste
in casa di Dino Trappetti alle serate trascorse
cantando sui tavoli di Anema e Core, ogni
individuo viene traviato dallo stile dell’isola.
Anche i milanesi, in molte altre occasioni
compassati e discreti, si lasciano vincere
dallo spirito “cafonal”, come dimostra la
storica foto di Afef che canta nella taverna di
Guido Lembo, mentre Paolo Mieli e Marco
Tronchetti Provera suonano i tamburelli.
Un’immagine che vive e si consuma solo
dentro i confini di quest’isola».
Faraglioni. My rediscovery of Capri coincided
with Arbore and De Crescenzo’s playning
around there, back when they were doing
“Quelli della notte” on television. We’d go to
dinner at Da Paolino and have a hilarious
time, like the overgrown students we were.
And that’s when my love affair with Capri
started, split between the Quisisana and
Anema e Core.
Do you have an anecdote to share with us
that sums up those days?
A lot of what went on definitely can’t be
repeated in polite conversation, but there was
one episode that captured the spirit of the
times perfectly, and it involved De Crescenzo,
one of Italy’s most notorious tightwads. We
were all in the same motor launch anchored
in a pretty little cove, and he was the only one
who hadn’t jumped in the water. So as we
were all diving in to cool off, De Crescenzo
called out, “How’s the water?” We all replied
practically in unison, “It’s free!”
That silliness more or less defined the
mood on Capri back then. To find another
example we’d have to go back to 1987 when
I presented my book Libidine, published by
Mondadori in inflatable plastic, no less. The
event was followed by a party where virtually
everything was made of plastic, from the
balloons to the condoms.
What is left today of that image of Capri as
an island of sinful pleasures, the legacy of a
certain kind of literature and a wealth of racy
anecdotes that lent Capri an aura of perverse
fascination?
Capri is no longer the den of iniquity the great
novelists made it out to be. While it once drew
the entire gay literary colony, today vice is
about as commonplace as the change you
leave the barman as a tip for your coffee.
Once Capri had a sort of extraterritorial status;
it was a free port for sex and entertainment,
a place that guaranteed you exclusive
adventures not to be had anywhere else. But
with the arrival of modernity, that devilish whiff
of sulphur dissipated.
What exactly is Capri’s appeal? What makes
it unique?
Its amazing beauty, certainly, which is
undeniable. We were hardly the first to
discover that, after all; Tiberius’s choice
of Capri to be his island paradise was no
accident of history. In fact, the island’s
breathtaking scenery has always attracted
aesthetes and gays.
Would you say the island has its own set of
sacred rites that are played out every year in
the celebrities’ impelling desire to be there,
be seen, and go through the motions at any
cost?
As far as the glitterati are concerned, and
their rites of passage we can observe every
summer, Capri represents that levelling of
popular tastes to the lowest common - very
common - denominator. Unlike the Roman
variation on the theme, which targets only
the capital’s VIP’s, in this case everyone
who sets foot on Capri gets infected. From
the parties Dino Trappetti throws at his
house to the evening choruses at the tables
of Anema e Core, every single person gets
‘corrupted’ by the island’s style. Even the
ones from Milan, people who are normally
quite collected and discreet, happily “go
lowbrow”, as the history-making photo of Afef
singing Iustily in the taverna run by Guido
Lembo shows, while Paolo Mieli and Marco
Tronchetti Provera play the tambourines. A
sight to behold, I assure you, and a scene
that couldn’t play out anywhere else but on
Capri.
G. DEMMA - SIE
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