Cristina D'Avena (born 6 July 1964) is an Italian actress, singer and television personality. She has sold nearly 7 million copies of her albums.
D'Avena was selected to join the prestigious Institute of Antoniano choir, following her debut, Lo Zecchino d'Oro, at age three. In the early 1980s, she sang numerous anime theme songs, which were compiled into several successful albums. Around the same time, D'Avena made her debut as an actress. In 1986, she appeared in Love me Licia, an Italian adaption of the Japanese manga Ai Shite Knight. D'Avena has been performing concerts in Italy since the late 1990s.
In 1987 D'Avena recorded the French version of the Italian theme song Lovely Sara (which she performed a few months earlier), intended to accompany the broadcast of Princesse Sarah, the first cartoon produced in Japan to be broadcast on La Cinq .
From the end of the 80s D'Avena began a more than ten-year and practically uninterrupted series of live performances in numerous places, from large arenas to shopping centers to street parties and small venues. In November 1989 and 1990 he held two concerts at the PalaTrussardi in Milan which were attended by a total of around 20,000 spectators, while the one in 1992 at the FilaForum in Assago brought together 13,000 people in the room and 3,000 outside.
In 1989 she also began working as a television and radio presenter with the Saturday night variety show on Canale 5 Sabato al Circo, which won the Telegatto in the Children's Programs category. The program continued for four years, until 1992, when it changed title, network and programming day and became Il grande circo di Rete 4. Together with Gerry Scotti, Cristina D'Avena presented the 1989 New Year's Eve special on Canale 5, "L'allegria fa novanta", and the one from 1990, Long live cheerfulness.
Thanks to the success of her first tests as a presenter, in the early 1990s Cristina D'Avena was chosen for numerous programs. Since 8 November 1992 he has hosted the children's version of Fiorello's Karaoke on Italia 1, Cantiamo con Cristina, broadcast at 8pm on Sundays: in each episode two teams compete to the tune of his theme songs. In the 1993/1994 season he participated in the sixth edition of Buona Domenica alongside Gerry Scotti and Gabriella Carlucci, hosting Radio Cristina, the commentary column on letters and faxes sent by children, and performing in some musical and dance numbers (in these spaces he also has the opportunity to perform the songs from the newly released Cristina Canta Disney album). In the fifth edition of La sai l'ultima?, broadcast on Canale 5 in the 1995/1996 television season hosted by Gerry Scotti and Paola Barale, she obtained the role of special correspondent traveling around Italy. Starting from 15 September 1996, for two years in a row, alternating weekly with Pietro Ubaldi, he hosts the program of cartoons and telephone games Game Boat broadcast every day in the early evening on Rete 4; in this period the fourteenth chapter of Fivelandia was also published, one of the singer's greatest successes, awarded platinum for over 100,000 copies sold.
While continuing her activity as a singer for the Mediaset networks, since 1998 Cristina D'Avena has worked as a presenter in Rai, first at the Zecchino d'Oro for three years until 2000 as co-presenter alongside Cino Tortorella and Milly Carlucci , and then from autumn 1998 with Andrea Pezzi he hosts the Friday night variety show on Rai 2 Serenate, created by Fabio Fazio who was initially supposed to be the host. In 1999 and 2000 he hosted two editions of Concerto di Primavera in April and Merry Christmas to the whole world in December on Rai 1.
Furthermore, in this decade, D'Avena's fame went beyond the confines of television. In 1994 Mina included in her album Canarino mannaro a cover of a song written by her son Massimiliano Pani and originally sung by Cristina D'Avena in 1988 with the title Always attentive to the regulation; for the occasion, the title and lyrics were changed and the song became Tu dimmi che città.
On 13 February 2016 Cristina D'Avena took part as a super guest in the final evening of the Festival di Sanremo singing a medley of hits.
In 2017, after 35 years of career with the Five Record/RTI Music label, Cristina D'Avena moved to the Warner Music Italy record company taking a more general artistic direction: on 10 November 2017 the album Duets - Tutti cantano Cristina was released with some of his songs rearranged and recorded in duets with 16 big names in Italian music; the operation was highly commercially successful and reached the top of the best-selling albums chart, obtaining gold status (25,000+ copies) after three weeks and platinum (50,000+ copies) on 2 January 2018; Duets made Cristina D'Avena the only woman in the top 20 best-selling albums in Italy in 2017.
On 8 February 2019 the singer was a guest on the fourth evening of the Festival di Sanremo as a duet with Shade and Federica Carta in Senza farlo apposta, while on 8 March "Centouno Dalmatian Street" was published, the artist's first theme song for a Disney animated series. In the summer, Netflix entrusted Cristina with "My Life Is Going On", the theme song for the TV show Money Heist, in which the singer makes a brief cameo dressed like the characters from the series.
