Riporto per beneficio di inventario il titolo apparso oggi (addirittura) sulla prima pagina di REPUBBLICA :


Annuncio della rockstar :"Grazia alla nuova legge". Elton John: sposerò il mio compagno a Windsor.

A pagina 23 c'è l'articolo a tutta pagina con tanto di foto a colori di Elton e David.

ho comprato La Repubblica ma la foto è in B/N ..non a colori .. triste che vada sui giornali sempre per le solite cose...

Ora la stampa parlerà sempre e solamente delle solite cose; i meriti artistici come sempre saranno tralasciati.
Mi dispiace che di lui si parli come un fenomeno da gossip più che per le sue indubbie qualità artistiche.

Ciao a tutti Andrea S.

Per la cronaca...c'è un articolo anche su "La Sicilia" di oggi (quotidiano siciliano),con una lunga intervista ad Elton (in realtà è la traduzione/riassunto di quella pubblicata sul Mirror inglese) e due foto,di cui una con David e il principe Carlo);
inoltre ho visto un servizio anche al TG2.

Andrea

si, l'hanno detto e scritto praticamente ovunque oggi

F OR Sir Elton John, it was all too traumatic. As he watched Billy Elliot, his eyes welled up and tears rolled down his cheeks.

Like the young miner's son in the film who battles to be a ballet dancer, Elton's formative years were marred by his parents' unhappy marriage and his fight to win approval from his dad.

Approval to go into show business and, more important, to be accepted for who he was.

Elton says: "I had to be helped from my seat, sobbing. I identified with Billy totally. It touched a nerve - particularly when, at the end, he wins against the odds. He gets his goal and finally gains the support and acceptance of his father. That's what got me."


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The emotional impact the story made on him immediately convinced him he had to turn it into a musical. Now, five years on, Billy Elliot The Musical is set to become the hottest ticket in London's West End.


While part of Billy's experience mirrors his own, Elton never properly healed his rift with his dad Stanley Dwight, who was a squadron leader in the RAF.


To this day, he believes his feelings that he was never good enough for him led to a lifelong struggle with low self-esteem. And that in turn triggered his well-charted battles against booze, drugs and binge-eating.


Sighing, the star says: "I just thought I could never do anything right in my father's eyes. From the word go, my earliest memory, we were awkward with each other and never knew how to communicate on a proper level as he did with his other children.


"He just intimidated me so much. I was afraid of him big-time. I used to think I could never do anything right.


"When he was around, I wasn't even allowed to make a noise. I was even afraid of eating celery at the table."


Fortunately for Elton, his father was at home only for short periods of time on leave. When he was away, his mum Sheila encouraged the boy's interest in music.


He says: "Part of the problem was that I was the result of a marriage which shouldn't have happened. My parents just weren't suited.


"I would dread him coming home because they always used to row and it upset me seeing her hurt. They would regularly fall out over me. She was always very protective towards me and when he picked on me, as he often would, she defended me.


I T very much affected me. In those formative years as a child, till you're a teenager, what happens then is there for life.


"I know it knocked my self-esteem and I still suffer from that all the time. I still have terrible problems with the way I look, with my weight and stuff like that.


"I think it's gotten better because I've gotten sober and I understand how I feel, but I just accept now that it's always going to be there."


Elton was 15 when his parents divorced in 1962. When his father died of heart disease in 1991, aged 66, he didn't attend the funeral, saying it would have been hypocritical to do so. But now he says: "As you get older you mellow and look back, and I do understand more now how my father must have felt.


"I feel that I've been too critical of him in the past and that maybe some of it was unjustified. If only my father could have come to one of my shows earlier on and we could have been close.


"He did try to make amends. Late in his life, we kind of reconciled with each other. But when we met up the conversation was awkward. He was trying in the best way to say: 'I'm proud of you, son' and he did, but it was never a comfortable thing.


"God rest his soul and I wish we could have had that relationship, and I think both of us felt like that."


Ironically, the self-doubt may be the key to why, after 30 years, Elton, 58, is still one of the world's best-selling rock stars. Despite amassing a nice retirement nest-egg estimated at least £185million, he is a perfectionist, always driving himself on to do better.


Relaxing in his penthouse suite at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas - where he is performing - he bats off praise for his new musical.


"It's too long," he says, "but we will cut it back, lose a couple of songs. Then it will be better."


He can't wait to fly back for the West End premiere on May 12, starring Common As Muck's Tim Healy as Billy's dad and Peak Practice actress Haydn Gwynne as his inspirational dance teacher.


"I don't just want it to be another musical - I want it to be the best there is," he says. "I really believe in it. As soon as I saw the film I thought it would be a terrific musical. I love everything about it: its originality, its realism, the humour."


Elton joined the £5million project after writer Lee Hall and producer Stephen Daldry, the two British talents behind the movie, agreed to be involved.


He created 19 songs in just two weeks. He explains: "I always find that my best albums were those that I wrote quickly. If I haven't got a melody for a song in about an hour I move on to something else."


But fans of his music, mainly known for its sentimentality, are in for a surprise. It's far removed from Candle In the Wind, Sacrifice or his Disney musical The Lion King, for which he won an Oscar.


Elton's version of Billy Elliot is even grittier than the movie. Set amid the turmoil of the bitter miners' strike 20 years ago - children swear, miners goad policemen that they have been "****ing their wives" and there is a stinging attack on Margaret Thatcher.


One line goes: "Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher... because you are one day closer to your death."


Elton knows this may be controversial, but he is unrepentant. He says: "I never worried about leaving that line in, because at the time that is how the miners felt. People may find it offensive and I know that Mrs Thatcher is a very frail woman now. I've met her on many occasions and found her charming.


"In retrospect, I think she was an incredible politician. But I wasn't on her side on the miners' strike and I think the song represents the anger against her. Those miners were so frustrated they would have killed her."


Elton put his foot down over setting his music to some of Lee's lyrics. He says, smiling: "I did have to take out some swearing. I said to Lee: 'You can't get away with the C-word. You're never going to be able to do that.


"But I think the lyrics are just brilliant - they are conversations. It is very strong. I just felt that we had to keep in a sense of what it was like at the time in those mining communities. You can't soften up something like that. This is a piece of history."


Elton was appalled by the violence of the strike. He says: "It was _ a horrific time for those people in the mining communities to go through.


"It pitted working-class people against working-class people, the police against the miners, and it broke up families."


From the way he is talking, you might think Elton was fascinated by politics. But the first time he voted in his life was at the 2001 election - for Tony Blair.


Being Elton, of course, he has enjoyed private dinners with both Blair and Michael Howard but he hasn't decided who to support. He says: "I think Labour will win because the economy is doing so well."


With a laugh Elton, who earns millions touring America, adds: "That's not great for me, because the pound is so strong and the dollar's so weak.


"But I think Blair's done many good things. For me, as a gay man, allowing civil marriage ceremonies for us is good. I think he made a mistake over Iraq, but I think he's a good man at heart."


Elton probably won't vote. He's not back in Britain until the premiere, which he is attending with those who have supported him - partner David Furnish, his mother Sheila and his stepfather Fred, whom he affectionately calls Derf (Fred backwards).


Also there, in his thoughts, is bound to be his dad... without whom the show would never have happened.