Ask her who the Beatles were: Maria Vittoria Backaus – the only female photographer at Vigorelli – talks about her Fab Four
Milan, 16 June 2025 – “One of my favourite shots of that day portrays the astonished carabinieri , stunned by the crowd of kids screaming under the stage, with the names of John, George, Paul and Ringo written in marker on their arms ”, says photographer Maria Vittoria Backhaus , leafing through the memories of that 24 June 1965 when the Beatles played at the Vigorelli, captured in the pages of “Come Together”: the volume co-authored with Marino Bartoletti for the sixtieth anniversary of the event, which the two authors are presenting this afternoon (Monday 16 June 2025) at 6:30 pm at the Libreria Rizzoli Galleria.
The book tries to differentiate itself from others on the subject by linking the concert to the impact it had on the society and customs of those years, as can also be deduced from the challenging subtitle: "The day that changed music in Italy" .
“I have always privileged, in my images, the narration of facts rather than their simple documentation, and it was the same with the Fab Four – continues Backhaus, twenty-three at the time , who later became one of the most influential photographers of fashion, design and accessories –. In my archive I have no publications relating to the Beatles, so I think I took those photos for my own personal interest, without a commission. McCartney and his companions held two concerts and I, to take advantage of the daylight, went to the afternoon one which, given the time, was mostly crowded with kids ”.
Those same “disheveled, screaming, sweaty, in need of a shower” described by Natalia Aspesi in Il Giorno , recounting the quartet's arrival at Milan Central Station the previous evening aboard the Trans Europ Express from Lyon.
“I don’t remember that concert with emotion,” says Backhaus . “I went out of curiosity, after having seen them at the cinema in Richard Lester’s ‘All for One’ , struck by their instinctive simplicity. And during the press conference at the Hotel Duomo in via Foscolo I found them funny, just like on the screen. Made of a very different stuff from certain Italian singer-songwriters, who I met thanks to my friendship with Nanni Ricordi, who instead took themselves very seriously. Perhaps struck by the fact that I was the only woman in the group of photographers in front of them, the Beatles at a certain point even asked me to leave with them for Genoa , the next stop on their Italian tour. A gesture of sympathy between twenty-year-olds. I started laughing.”
“Come Together - The day that changed music in Italy” is a volume that is first and foremost photographic in which Bartoletti's narration helps to connect and contextualise the shots: “Years now far away of which little or nothing remains, but nevertheless very important for Milan, because they are the ones that saw the birth of fashion and design in parallel with shocking political and social upheavals such as Piazza Fontana or the birth of the armed struggle”.
The many faces of a city whose moods and changes Maria Vittoria Backhaus has continued to tell with her lens. “Even though I am a studio photographer, in 2003 I set my sights on creating a fashion shoot in the middle of summer under the winged horses of the Central Station , cursed by everyone for the difficulty in obtaining all the necessary authorizations to work up there – she says –. An undertaking made even more difficult by having the models wear winter clothes in 40 degree temperatures. But in the end I managed that too”.
Images, his, collected in books and exhibitions. “Recently with La Cavallerizza in Brescia I have done a couple, a collective one on the Beatles and the other anthological one that closed its doors only a few days ago – he concludes –. With the gallery owner Alessia Paladini, instead, on June 25 we will put on sale twenty-five signed and numbered prints of the photo of the Beatles with the spires of the Duomo in the background present in the book”.
Il Giorno
