Madonna and the italian Vogue

Madonna, who turns 60 on August 16th, has been living in Lisbon for a year with four of her six children: David Banda and Mercy James, 12, and the twins Stella and Esther, 5 years old. The pop star, worldwide exclusive in the August issue of Vogue Italia, reveals the reasons for the transfer and tells about her everyday life in the Portuguese capital. Madonna is in fact the protagonist of the cover story of the magazine with an exceptional photo shoot created by Mert & Marcus, who were able to follow the popstar in Lisbon in her daily places, and portray her in the company of her four children. "I told myself: let's see if for a year I can live somewhere else and bring my four children in a different environment, because I think it's important to make them grow in contact with different cultures. The choice was between Juventus Academy in Turin, Barcelona and Benfica or Sporting in Lisbon. I went there and tried to imagine how it was to live in these cities. Of course, Barcelona is a fantastic city, and I like Turin too, but it does not seem suitable for children. It's all right for the intellectuals, with all those beautiful museums and impressive buildings, but I do not think the kids would have had fun. I have to think about everyone, I can not just take David into account. So I went to Lisbon and overall I thought it was the best choice. (...) Portugal is steeped in history: its empire has left its mark on the world, architecture is extraordinary. And being also the place where slavery originated, it is influenced by the musical influences of countries such as Angola and Cape Verde, as well as Spain. And if that was not enough, one of my favorite activities of all is to ride a horse. (...) To ride I go to Comporta, or to a friend's house, or to Alcácer. There are many surrounding areas where you can go horse riding, and every time my son does not have the game on Sunday, the day becomes an adventure in which we choose a place to ride. " In the interview with Vogue Italia, Madonna explains how the Lisbon experience was also a source of inspiration for her next album.

"I always say that Portugal is governed by three f: fado, football and Fátima. It is also a very Catholic country, which is very good for me. It reminds me of Cuba, because people do not have much but open the door of any house, go to any alley and you'll always hear music. (...) You always hear a lot of fado and the kuduro, an Angolan musical genre. Also a lot of jazz, and of the old school: a beautiful thing. I met many wonderful musicians and many of them ended up collaborating on my new record, so Lisbon influenced my music and my work. How could it have been the other way around? Impossible to spend a year without being conditioned by all the culture that surrounded me. " But the life of the footballer's mother, revealed Madonna to Vogue Italia, is not all roses and flowers. "Any woman who devotes herself full time to her children, who comes and goes from the soccer fields, would tell her that in the meantime a life does not have it because things change from week to week and weekend games over the weekend: sometimes they are in the city, sometimes not, and until Thursday evening we do not know if they will be on Saturday or Sunday, if at noon or maybe later. It's impossible to get organized and then you have the feeling of being unjust towards other children, not to say of yourself! " But the popstar states that all her children have adapted to change.

"The most surprising thing is their ability to overcome any obstacle, immerse themselves in anything, in music, in dance, in football and in sports in general, activities that bring them in close contact with others and make adaptation easier . (...) The boys have learned to speak Portuguese while standing among the others, not sitting in a school desk with a blackboard in front of them, to understand each other. In this way learning is fun, it is interactive. Above all for Stella and Esther, who spent four years in an orphanage; They are so happy to be with others, to make themselves useful, to be part of a group, small or big, to be leaders. They are extremely strong and full of life and joy. (...) They are two very open-minded girls and because of my work and the continuous travels around the world, the things I do and the places where I find myself. All my children have a very open mind and I am very proud of it. There are people who tell me: of course you want your son to become a successful football player, the eldest (Lourdes, nda) a dancer, Rocco a painter. And I always say no, what I want for my children is that they become responsible human beings, capable of loving and feeling compassion. Nothing else. I do not care which way they follow, I just want them to be good human beings who treat everyone else with dignity and respect regardless of skin color, religion and gender. This is the most important thing, I mean? If they were to become the next Picasso or Cristiano Ronaldo, very well, it would just be the icing on the cake. "

Madonna also spoke with Vogue Italia of Malawi, where in 2006 she founded the charitable organization Raising Malawi, created to assist local children orphaned by AIDS, and where she met and adopted her sons David and Mercy James . Last year he opened the country's first pediatric hospital, which bears the name of his daughter Mercy James and that the popstar will soon be visiting for the first anniversary of the inauguration."The idea is not to bring people from outside, but to educate and prepare the Malawians who want to be doctors, surgeons, nurses: this is the way in which a country can become self-sufficient and proud of itself. (...) Surgeries are carried out in the hospital that does not do anybody else in the world. Last week, in intensive care, an operation was performed on two Siamese twins born with the common liver. The odds that they survived the operation - that they lived - were very scarce. In the end, not only did the surgery succeed, but the children survived and are recovering. He has no idea how much he can make us proud, what it means for the locals, for the community, to be able to say: "We have done something that nobody can do. We saved lives and changed them. " This is what gives hope to people. "