The emotion cannot be the same as his. But it is tangible, perceptible, it is almost possible to touch it. Because the last few years of Angelina Mango have been on the one hand beautiful, but also complicated. And the fact that she is back with an album, CaramĂ©, and a tour, Nina sings in theaters, is wonderful news. Both for her, but especially for Italian music. We were at her last concert of the first tour in theaters, Saturday, March 28, 2026, at the Teatro Lirico in Milan. It was a special date that put a spot on a first live comeback for the young girl who had won everyone over at Amici and especially at Sanremo 2024 with “La Noia.”
With that very song she entered the middle of the audience, almost without barriers, turning it into a version suspended between trap and r’n’b. Before repeating that “life has to be taken a bite.” Angelina says it again and again, spinning like a spinning top on the stage of the Giorgio Gaber Opera House in Milan. A stage that ideally becomes her home. There is a mirror, a bunk bed, a bookcase. And it is precisely in front of the mirror that one of the most intense moments takes shape, “Io e Io,” a continuous dialogue with his own conscience – the one that in the record has the voice of Madame – and that here becomes even more naked, more direct.
In “We Missed the End” she sits back, slows down, while “Like a Child” comes almost on tiptoe, with a beam of light caressing her, silencing everything else. Yet the audience cannot sit still: several times it interrupts the flow, stands up, applauds. It is a continuous dialogue. Between applause, thoughts that are spoken aloud. In “7up,” she sings about not being a star “not by a long shot,” a freshman in a life of 100 and honors. Yet, watching her now, it is hard to believe her all the way: with this tour-and already with the album-Angelina Mango has really grown up.
“Nina sings in theaters” is the name of the tour, but what she does goes beyond just singing. She dances free, different: no longer a gypsy, but a girl who has come to terms with her past or is perhaps still trying. But then in the end, who has really done them to the end? She takes those reckonings, exorcises them, turns them into songs. Against fear, in favor of life. From “Fragile Package” to Pulp Fiction to “Melodrama,” it’s a short step. Then “Che t’o dico a fa,” lighter, shared: where Nina sings with the audience, laughs, really has fun. And it’s infectious.
The bunk bed returns to the center: on it are “Edmund and Lucy,” a reminder of her childhood, when she slept there with her brother Philip. She climbs onto the bed, then comes down approaching the drums and hugs him, bringing a tear to everyone’s eye. Angelina, in her wanderings of someone who is innocently enjoying everything, calls her fellow travelers one by one: keyboards, percussion, strings. She looks at them gratefully, drinks water often, says it’s from excitement, and you can hear it’s true. From the audience someone shouts “We missed you,” and she quickly replies, “I missed you.” And to prove it, she sings “Empty Hands” while sitting on the edge of the stage, and then comes down for real. Those hands, symbolically, she fills them: waving, touching, crossing glances.
“Always and always smile,” he says at one point. And it sounds more like a promise than a sentence. Also with her is Henna, her best friend: together they sing “so-and-so,” and she dedicates “My Love” to her. “Hand Grenade” live is even stronger, more physical than it already was on record, confirming itself as one of the most powerful tracks, which really explodes in the theater.
Angelina wants to enjoy everything until the last moment. Even in the climax, the final moment, which means a farewell to the theaters, before the summer outdoor revival with the same show. To kick off “Indian Row,” she confides, saying something she wanted to keep private: as an intro there is a nocturne by her father, the immense Pino Mango. It is one of the most emotionally charged moments, speaking.
Angelina is overwhelmed by the affection of fans, but also by their gifts. She is moved, she says she feels like a child. And maybe that’s the point: she hasn’t lost that part, which maybe a little bit of all of us should get back sometimes. But she has grown up. Because it was not easy to transport a record so full of words and meaning into a live dimension, on such an important stage as theaters. But she managed to do it by demonstrating all her versatility. Even in the songs that were rearranged by her especially for this date. And which after the sold out in theaters will arrive in other cities in the summer: July 17 at the Teatro Romano in Verona, and then on to dates in Caserta (July 20 – Belvedere di San Leucio), Palermo (July 22 – Teatro di Verdura), Taormina (July 24 – Teatro Antico), Porto Recanati (July 28 – Arena Beniamino Gigli), Rome (July 30 – Auditorium Parco della Musica – Cavea), Castiglioncello (August 2 – Castello Pasquini), Assisi (August 5 – La Rocca), and ending in Matera (August 8 – Cava del Sole).
[📸 Courtesy of Comunicarlo]
