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Lara Saint Paul, born Silvana Savorelli in 1946, is an Italian singer, actress, impresario and record producer. She was born in Asmara to an Italian father and Eritrean mother, and moved to Italy as a young girl. Lara studied singing under the guidance of a teacher who had performed at the Scala di Milano, Prof. Tina Brini. Lara made Italy her new home. It was the magic land of the Condoteieri of the Renaissance and Fellini, a land rich in temperament and lyricism.
She longed for music from the beginning. As a girl, curious about music, Lara was spending enchanted hours listening to the magnificence of gopels and spirituals. At sixteen, Lara went to the Sanremo Festival, the mecca of the Italian song. She was immediately recognized as an emerging talent. Success came in 1967 when she changed her record company and started singing under the flag of manager-industrialist Pier Quinto Cariaggi, soon to become her Pygmalion and her husband. They had two daughters, Manuela and Guendalina.
Lara Saint Paul's first public performance was in 1962 at the Festival della canzone italiana, also known as the Sanremo Music Festival, in Italy. She went by the name of Tanya and performed the ballad I Colori Della Felicitá.
Her big success arrived when she returned to Sanremo in 1968 as one of the two performers of the song, titled Mi va di cantare. The other performer was Louis Armstrong, and they performed alongside Lionel Hampton. Louis Armstrong is quoted by Lara Saint Paul as saying that she was "one of the most talented singers I ever met in all my life." She also participated in Sanremo in 1972 with Se non fosse tra queste mie braccia lo inventerei and in 1973 with Una Casa Grande. She was a finalist three times in the Sanremo Music Festival.
In 1988, Lara Saint Paul was a producer and conductor for the Sanremo Music Festival at the Casino di Sanremo.
Lara Saint Paul has worked with many notable talents in the music industry. Her songs Non preoccuparti and Adesso ricomincerei were produced and arranged by American producer Quincy Jones in 1973. In the same year she released an Italian cover version of Killing Me Softly with His Song, originally composed by Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel, titled Mi fa morir cantando. Lara Saint Paul has worked and performed with notables such as Ray Charles, Lionel Hampton, Louis Armstrong, Roberta Flack, Frank Sinatra and Stevie Wonder. Her popular 1977 album Saffo Music, recorded in Los Angeles and produced by Leon Ware, featured The Pointer Sisters on backing vocals, guitar by Ray Parker Jr., bass by Chuck Rainey and was mixed by Bill Conti. The largest markets for her music outside of Italy and Europe are Argentina, Brazil and Japan. One of her 1970s tracks, So, is featured on several current popular lounge music compilations. The majority of her work was released in Italy on the record label Company Discografica Italiana (CDI) and later Lasapa, both of which she owned with her husband, Italian producer and showman Pier Quinto Cariaggi.
In 1982 she brought the aerobics craze to Italy, working closely with actress and fitness guru Jane Fonda. The video, book and music album, titled Aerobic Aerobica, Aerobic Dance, and a single titled AAA Aerobica, were parts of an exercise program with songs performed by Lara Saint Paul. The program was a huge hit and went on to achieve cult status in Italy. Aerobic Dance won a Gold Record in Italy for sales. A clothing line and The Aerobic Center fitness clubs licensed with the name Lara Saint Paul were also created that featured the aerobics program.
Lara has been featured in many television specials in Italy and around Europe, starting with the variety show Quelli Della Domenica in 1968, for RAI. A 1970-1971 edition of the RAI network TV show Canzonissima featured Lara Saint Paul, bringing Italian film and music personalities together on TV. The 1992 Lara Superspecial show spectacular for Eurovisione and RAI 2 was broadcast all over Europe and in 19 countries, featuring Frank Sinatra, Liza Minnelli, Harry Belafonte and Luciano Pavarotti. This highly successful television special received a special prize from the Italian critica televisa. The Lara Superspecial orchestra was arranged by Gian Marco Gualandi, who also participated in Lara Saint Paul's 1992 European Tour.
More recently, in 2005 and 2007 she was on Italian television for retrospectives featuring the life of Frank Sinatra. Sinatra and his wife Barbara were personal friends of Lara Saint Paul, and Sinatra's return to Italy in 1986 after 24 years abroad had been orchestrated by Lara Saint Paul's husband, Pier Quinto Cariaggi, who had also organized Sinatra's 1987 Italian tour.
Using the name Lara Cariaggi, she co-produced and wrote the 1995 television documentary The Best is Yet to Come with her husband Cariaggi. It was an extensive biography about the life of their friend, opera singer Luciano Pavarotti, and Lara was the interviewer for the documentary.
The Italian awards show Viva Hollywood for RAI, a production of Lara Saint Paul's husband Pier Quinto Cariaggi and his company Galenter Entertainment, was co-presented and co-produced by Lara Saint Paul. It started in 1988 and every year brought Hollywood stars to Italy to present them with a Merit of Achievement Award for their work. It was a success for the Italian RAI network and had very high annual ratings. Bette Davis received the first award in 1988. The nominees stayed at the five star Villa d'Este hotel in Cernobbio and were awarded a bronze statuette for lifetime achievement at the televised awards show. Some of the guests, such as Kirk Douglas, had a personal meeting with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican arranged for them by Lara Saint Paul and Cariaggi.
