Diana Navarro arrives at the appointment in the Madrid Athenaeum of the Braido’s Bracete, Rafael Rodríguez, with whom she married in 2018. Any couple walking at the time of the appetizer between idle and native tourists with a hurry in the crowded Madrid center . Well, not exactly. Not only because I’m waiting for her, I see her getting from afar. Neither high nor loss nor anodine, there is something in it that captures the look without overwhelming it. XL sunglasses, red lips, jet hair, jeans and white lace shirt under a skins jacket that seem authentic. But, above all, a certain classic air between the uniform of long coats and padded jackets on sports of the countryman. I tell you, between jokes and you will see, at the beginning of the talk, and it seems pleased.
It is the living image of the brunette of the couplet.
Yes, the truth (laughs). Morena because I will be blonde, which always sweets the features, but, for now, my black hair endures me well. And, about the couplet, I like that world of folk. A shield, even if it is small. A skirt coat, that I do not feel proud and I understand the animalists, but I have this of the 1990s, inheritance of my aunt Charo, and I like to put it on. And a Mercedes, even if it is renting. I am folk, but modern.
The tour is called I’m not alone. Is it a defense or an attack?
That a wink, 20 years later, to the song Solathat I released in 2005. It was so successful that even I heard someone say: “You are more alone than Diana Navarro.” Well, here I continue, two decades later, singing. And I’m not alone.
Can an exit as soon as a sweet conviction?
Condemns, not at all. That song had such an impressive glue, I think, because people are very alone and felt understood by me, as a companion of solitudes. I am very grateful to that subject, they ask me at each concert. It reminds me where I come from now where I am. I tattooed the word “alone” on the left wrist, just where I take my pulse, as a mantra, to remind me that being alone is not bad, that there is no greater loneliness than being badly accompanied by fear of loneliness or lack of self-esteem.
It seems to know that feeling well.
Yes, I don’t think there is a harder loneliness than being with someone you love and feel alone. That is tremendous.
When did he realize that his voice was a gift that excited others?
As a child I didn’t have that conscience. I sang, people looked at me and shut up, and that feeling made me very happy. I knew that I sang, who sang very well, but I was never happy, I am very perfectionist, and that I think has made me an athlete of the voice, to make the most difficult yet, which is what I have perfected, vocal juggles , to put it in some way. That liked my audience. But the awareness of having a gift to excite, and the responsibility of transmitting that emotion, has come to me later. Since I began to rebuild myself, in 2009.
What happened in 2009?
I realized that I didn’t love me. I knew that the person I was cheating. I was the last to find out. Everyone realized less, because I was wanting blindly, and you have to love with my eyes open. That knows one later, when it is reconstructed personally. There is no worse blind than the one who does not want to see and, thus, blind, they did everything.
Are you talking about abuse?
Physical, no, thank God. Psychological, I think so. I don’t know if he did, but I received it that way. They are undermining self -esteem without realizing it. When I hear that women with career have suffered it and ask what is possible, I say, of course it is, we don’t get rid of that. No one escorted in a foreign head. I, who consider myself an independent, intelligent and respectful woman, I was so undermined in my self -esteem that, in the end, I begged him: leave me, because I cannot. That’s why I was alone, even without being.
But all that has happened, isn’t it?
Thank God. Since 2016, I began to love me, and today I am very happy. Interestingly, I thank life for everything that I have happened. I would have liked to suffer less, but I think I had to go through all that to be the person and the artist that I am today.
There are those who say that suffering adds maturity and nuances to artists. What a job, right?
Yes, but I think it is so. When you see young artists who say: what a wonder, I think: you’ll see when I have his first disappointment, it will be doubly wonderful. The emotion has memory, memory. That is why I think the public empathizes. In joy it empathizes, but with the drama we pity ourselves because pain is what really marks you in life. And I tell you that I love a drama, but I also love to laugh.
So, does it sing better than ever?
Well, notice that the voice, which is alive, evolves a lot, and more that of women, that affect hormonal changes. My voice now has nothing to do with that of other times, I listen to and we look like different people. But, perhaps, now, being with perimenopause, singing more similar than ever when I was 20 years old. Then it was free. And now, too. And, yes, now I realize that the voice is a gift and I, that I am a Christian, I thank God every day.
What does faith provide?
Paz, and more over the years. Look, I get excited and everything. I don’t know how to explain the feeling that seizes me in a church. And I know there are priests that get into the lives of people, who give intolerable sermons and get into politics. I am not interested in anything. I am interested in the men and women of the Church that help others. You will love others like yourself. Starting from the basis that my brother is gay, and, even if it wasn’t, I think people are equal and it doesn’t matter who you love and how you want to call yourself, there is no one to put anyone because we are all children of God. I keep the good of Christianity and the Church. Then, as in all groups, there are people who do it wrong and take advantage of it, something that condemns deeply.
In September it was received at a hearing by the Papa Francisco. How did he see him?
Poor, he was very kind and that was very tired and cold. We believed that the audience was going to be suspended because it fell the night before, but maintained it, although it thundered. I was planned to sing to him, but nobody told me anything, and I didn’t ask either. It was very exciting. Francisco has a very difficult mission. We are increasingly polarized, but he is doing things and opening the church to all. I stay with when he said the shepherds smelled like sheep.
How do you live healthy love after having lived the toxic, in your own words?
I did all the evidence in the world, because I was scalded, because I, unconsciously, was waiting for me to give it to me, until I removed the shotgun from under the bed. I realize that I had not lived love, I had lived the Ansia alive, possession. Now I live really love, without folk idealization. Love with open eyes, when you see that person respects you, validates you equally, admires you, but above all looks at you as you are and tells you and listens to things as you think.
It is defined as folk. Do you think that the label?
I am folkloric, in the best sense of the term. I consider myself a disciple of Martyrdom and Carlos Cano, who were the precursors of the dignification of the couplet. I understand all points of view. We left Franco as those who leave Toriles and, for an era, we wanted to be the most modern, we wanted to be Swedes, and everything that sounded to Cañí was rejected or suspicious. But, of that, nothing. The couplet was, in origin, the relief of women. When they couldn’t speak, they sang. And that has recovered. That is why my audience is so diverse and so many ages. They have told me: “I listened to my mother, and I didn’t like anything, but now that she has died, I love listening to you to connect with her.” Neither my music nor my audience has labels. Who comes to listen to me is because he feels brother of emotion, and I love that.
Others, and others, with half the voice than you, are much more famous and rich than you. Does this popularity and that status miss?
I already had my moment Michael Jackson. I sold millions of copies. But I do not change my audience, and the immense respect I feel that it has me, for all the fame of the world. Now I am a producer, I play my money at concerts and records. If I can, of course I would like to reach more people, because I like to share my music, and I like to live well with it, but this healthy anonymity that I have is wonderful. I can go quietly down the street and, if they know me, it is to hug me and tell me beautiful things. It seems to me a beautiful gift.
As a good folk, he takes great care of his presence on stage. How many dresses do you have?
Well, in so many years singing, a few. I make them to measure with designers I admire, I take great care and I have all well stored in case one day I have a museum. Do you see? The folk is already talking.
“Hello, my name is Diana Navarro and Canto couplet.” This was presented since a Navarro teenager (Málaga, 46 years old) with his cassette recorded in his house in a ristre, by radios, parties and singing competitions from all over Andalusia and Spain, until a record scene. The launch of your song SolaIn 2005, he supposed his leap to a mass popularity that has been maintained, sifted, during all these years, thanks to a faithful audience and a prodigious voice that has cultivated flamenco and the melodic songs of his own, in addition, of course, of the couplets others. On April 6, it will perform at the Teatro Real in Madrid with the recital I’m not alone To celebrate that he is still in the race, but now, happily accompanied.