Goodbye to the Kessler sisters: the most famous songs in Italy
The news of the death of Alice and Ellen Kesslerat 89 years old, in Grünwald, comes like a distant echo that immediately brings to mind not only their impeccable image as dancers, but also the songs that marked their careers. Because the myth of the Kessler twins, beyond feathers, sequins and millimetric choreography, lives above all in their music: a repertoire that has crossed television shows, international stages and Italian popular memory.
Trained at the Leipzig Opera Dance School, they debuted as professional dancers in the post-war period. In 1953, with their family, they left East Germany and settled in West Germany. In a few years they gained visibility as principal dancers at the Palladium in Düsseldorf.
Noticed by Italian television producers, they arrived in Italy in the second half of the 1950s and became central figures of the RAI variety show. Their popularity increases with participation in programs such as Studio One (1961, 1966), Great song And Without Networkin which they stand out for their choreographic precision, stage presence and elegant and modern image.
Their artistic identity was born and consolidated precisely through those songs that managed to intertwine irony, elegance and a pinch of audacity. It’s impossible not to think about “Chicken and champagne”one of the most iconic pieces of their Italian period, a true manifesto of the light and sparkling glamor that the two sisters brought to the stage. A song that, listened to again today, retains that playful brilliance typical of Sixties TV. Alongside the best-known hits there are also their interpretations in German, such as “Puppenhochzeit” or “Dreh dich nicht um nach fremden Schatten”small jewels of the Central European pop of the time, built on soft orchestral arrangements and immediate melodies. Songs that told of a different Europe, more naive perhaps, but incredibly eager for entertainment.
And then there is their way of singing: clean, synchronized, without ever a hint of a flaw. They were not “powerful” vocalists in the modern sense of the word, but they knew how to transform each song into a small number with precision, where the voice was as much a part of the choreography as the steps and gestures. In Italy, their musical presence was fundamental: they brought an idea of international entertainment, where the song was never an isolated element but a part of a complete number. Songs like “The night is small” or “Da-da-un-pa” (made famous by their execution) are still cited today as examples of that perfect combination of lightness and spectacle that made them unique. With their disappearance, what really remains are the songs: small pieces of a golden era, capable of describing a world in which variety music was constructed with artisanal care and performed with professionalism.. The Kesslers leave together, as they have always lived.
Just a few days ago I was watching a documentary on RaiPlay about Antonello Falqui, the most important Italian television director of the sixties and seventies, the inventor of an elegant and refined formula for variety television. And naturally the Kessler twins, Alice and Ellen, were also present in the documentary, who with their participation in Falqui’s variety shows had become very famous and admired in Italy too. The news of their simultaneous deaths is one that saddens and makes you feel (even) older. We kids of the last century will remember them like this, with their songs and their dances. (fz)
“Da-da-un-pa”,
“The night is small”
“Let me kiss you with letkiss”
“Chicken and champagne”
