Singers of San Remo. San Remo Italian Song Festival

The famous 69th Italian Pop Song Festival opened on the stage of the Ariston Theater.

The famous music festival began last night, February 5, on the coast of the Ligurian Sea on the stage of the Ariston Theatre. The competition has been held annually since 1951. This year, just like last year, artistic director and the host of the show was the bard Claudilo Baglioni.

Comedians Virginia Raffaele and Claudio Bizin will help him on stage and introduce the contestants, Versiya.info reports.

And the world famous tenor

Sanremo 2019: the Italian song music festival is already open

Festival Italian song San Remo

Italian Song Festival in Sanremo (Italian: Festival della canzone italiana di Sanremo)- Italian song contest, which is held annually in winter in late February - early March (previously held at the end of January) in the city of San Remo, Italy.

Sanremo Festival

The competition is a competition for original songs by Italian composers that have not been performed anywhere before. The winner will be determined by the decision of a professional jury or by popular vote. Often this competition is simply called the Festival in Sanremo (Italian: Festival di Sanremo), or outside of Italy San Remo music festival(Eng. Sanremo Music Festival). It served as an inspiration for the creators of the Eurovision Song Contest.

Participation in the festival in Sanremo marked the beginning of the career of many now famous Italian singers, such as Andrea Bocelli (Italian: Andrea Bocelli), Paola and Chiara (Italian: Paola e Chiara), George Todrani (Italian: Giorgia Todrani), Laura Pausini (Italian Laura Pausini), Eros Ramazzotti (Italian Eros Ramazzotti) and Gigliola Cinquetti (Italian Gigliola Cinquetti).

The Sanremo festival is broadcast on Eurovision and is one of the main events of the Italian media. Therefore, it is not surprising that the decision for each competition almost always causes a lot of controversy and disagreement.

History of the Sanremo Festival

The forerunner of the festival in Sanremo was the festival of national singing (Italian: Festival Canoro Nazionale), held in 1948 by the organization La Capannina (Italian: La Capannina) in the town of Versilia (Italian: Versilia). But a year later it had to be canceled due to insufficient funding.

In the same 1950, Angelo Nicola Amato (Italian: Angelo Nicola Amato), responsible for organizing social events in the casino in San Remo, together with Angelo Nice (Italian: Angelo Nizza), star of the popular radio series Four Musketeers, decided to organize the first Italian Song Festival. Angelo Nicola Amato went to Milan, where he offered to buy the idea to the record company, and Angelo Nice offered the same thing in Turin to EIAR. The idea was accepted, but there were not enough rules, which were developed by Pierre Bussetti (Italian Pier Bussetti) and Giulio Razzi (Italian Giulio Razzi).

The first festival in Sanremo was held from January 29 to 31, 1951 and was broadcast on Rai Radio 1 (Italian: Rai Radio 1), and its participants were only two performers, Nilla Pizzi (Italian: Nilla Pizzi) and Akile Togliani (Italian: Achille Togliani).

Since 1955, the song contest has been broadcast live on the RAI 1 TV channel (Italian: RAI 1).

From 1951 to 1976, the festival was held in the casino in Sanremo (Italian: Casino di Sanremo), but since 1977, all competitions have been held at the Ariston Theater (Italian: Teatro Ariston), with the exception of 1990, when the competition was held at the new Flower Market (Italian Mercato dei Fiori) in the Armea Valley (Italian Armea), in the commune of Buzzana (Italian Bussana), on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary, due to the larger capacity of the premises.

Between 1953 and 1971, with the exception of 1956, each song was performed twice by two different singers, each performing the song in a different orchestral arrangement, demonstrating the main purpose of the festival as a competition for composers, not performers. At that time, it was accepted at the festival that the song was first performed by an Italian singer, and then by a singer invited from abroad. Since 1972, each contestant has performed only one song. The 1981 and 1984 festivals featured songs in English and French but written Italian composers. Some foreign singers, who participated in the 1960s competition, performed songs in which only the title was Italian.

In the 1980s, the Sanremo Festival abandoned the orchestra, and the contestants performed songs either with recorded music or completely with a soundtrack.

From 1956 to 1966, as well as in 1972, 1997 and 2011, the festival determined the Italian participant in the Eurovision Song Contest.

There is also a tragic page in the history of the festival in Sanremo. In 1967, contestant Luigi Tenco (Italian: Luigi Tenco) was found dead in a hotel room, a few hours after the end of the second round.

Since 1984, with the exception of 2004, the participants of the competition, in addition to the main nomination "Great Artist", are also awarded in the nomination "Debut" (Italian: Nuove Proposte), which actually announces another song that won the festival. In 1982, the nomination "Critic Prize" (Italian: Premio della critica) was established, the victory in which is awarded by the decision of the press covering the competition. Since 1996, this nomination has been named "Mia Martini" (Italian Mia Martini), in memory of the first singer who won the Critics' Award. At the recent festivals in San Remo, some songs were awarded special prizes. So, for example, the Volare Prize (Italian: Premio Volare) appeared for best text. The name of this award was inspired by the famous song by Domenico Modugno (Italian: Domenico Modugno) (written by Franco Migliacci) that won the 1958 contest. There is also a tradition of presenting an award for contribution to the development of the entertainment industry.

Evolution of the Sanremo Festival

1951: first competition
1953: Introduction of the rule of double interpretation of the song and orchestration, which will remain in effect until 1971, with the exception of 1956
1955: First live television broadcast
1958: First live broadcast of the Eurovision Song Contest
1961: a rule is introduced according to which the final scores are made by unanimous decision of Enalotto (Italian: Enalotto) and are announced a week after the final performance
1964: a rule is introduced according to which one of the interpretations of the song is performed worldwide famous singer who sings it on Italian, with rare exceptions
1972: Single interpretation rule reinstated
1974: for the first time, "great" performers get the right to perform directly in the final competition, in contrast to the "debutants" who compete for this right
1977: The festival moves from the casino in San Remo to the Ariston theater and is broadcast for the first time in color television.
1980: songs at the competition are performed either with recorded music or completely with a soundtrack
1982: The Critics' Award is established
1984: For the first time, the winners in the category "Great Artist" are determined by voting in Totip (Italian: Totip), while the winners in new nomination"Debut" is determined by the decision of the professional jury
1986: restoration of "live" performance of songs
1990: restoration of "live" orchestration and popular vote for all participants in the competition
1992: A rule is introduced whereby "great" performers also compete for the right to participate in the final competition
1994: The organization of the festival is again entrusted to RAI
1996: All debutants advance to the final competition dedicated to them
1997: introduction of a professional jury composed of media persons working in the entertainment industry (until 2003 and in 2007 and 2008)
1998: The first three finalists in the "Debutant" nomination receive the right to compete for victory in the "Great Artist" nomination
2002: again introduced for participants in the nomination "Debut" open voting of each member of the professional jury after the performance of the final song
2004: for all nominations, a single nationwide vote is introduced based on messages sent from mobile phones
2005: division of the competition into several nominations, the winners of which are awarded the highest award, as well as the restoration of mixed voting
2007: nominations limited to two - "Great Artist" and "Debut"
2009: First broadcast in DDT and HD and introduction of internet voting
2010: one of the contestants is the winner of the "X Factor" (ital. X Factor), as a reward for winning this game
2011: restoration of the tradition of electing a participant to represent Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest

Sanremo Festival Winners

List of winners in the nomination "Great Artist":

In 13 posts, I briefly talked about the performers who will take part in the Sanremo Festival this year. Those who were fond of Italian pop music in the 80s probably do not know any of these performers. There are three more (actually five) performers left, who cannot be ignored. I put them aside for dessert and for now I return to the annals of festivals. Today we will talk about the festival in 1967. During this contest, several things happened that were never seen before. But first things first. 30 songs took part in the festival. Each of which was represented by two performers or groups. 14 songs made it to the final. As in the past year, quite a lot of foreign performers "with a name" participated in the festival. I will list them in ascending order - the repeated leader of the English charts Connie Francis, the most popular Frenchwoman Dalida, the duet of Cher and Sonya (Cher also sang solo), the Hollies (!) And the first performer from behind the Iron Curtain - the legendary Anna German (but Magomayev didn't get there). By the way - this fact was never specifically mentioned, the only case when it was written about - in "The Coeval" somewhere in 1985, brief memoirs about Herman's Italian tour were published, but there it was not about San Remo, but about the Neapolitan Song Festival, in which he also took part in the same, 1967 year - she took 12th place there, but reached the final). I abandoned the chronicle of Neapolitan festivals long ago, but no one bothers to continue it.

Tenth place - "Cuore Matto" (translation not found). Performed by Little Tony and Mario Zelinotti. This is a very fresh sound. Somewhere it looks like "Romance", but in general it is difficult to imagine such melodies in San Remo three or four years ago.

21st place. Song from speaking name Gi. One of the performers is Anna German.

I'll be completely honest - the song is not competitive. Herman's style in this period was more in line with the Festival in Naples.

We will pay special attention to the 23rd place - the song "The Coming of Hope" was performed by the "silver" performer of the last competition Katerian Caselli and the duet of Cher and Sonya. The style has changed a bit. There is a unique video from their rehearsal. The camera already has a zoom lens!

24th place - Cher again with the song "Don't Sleep"

25th place - the Hollies. Uh-huh, the ones like "My brother is dumb. but he's my brother", "Bus stop", "The woman in black dress", "Sorry Susan" and "I'm alive". By the way, Mogul wrote a song for them. Don't be dumb

But this is not the end of the story about the festival.

28th place - Domenico Modugno (!) and Gidiuli with a song with a very strange name... "On the blue roof of my crazy love". Hmm....

The song is actually good, but not for this particular festival.

And in last place was the song "One of us", one of the performers of which was Milva, which went down in history IMHO for two reasons - she sang the famous "Passwords" with Celentano (by the way - the post with this clip is my most quoted post on LiveInternet ) plus for her canonical female version of "Bella Chao".

Amazing - for the second consecutive festival in which best songs buried far below the list.

What else would you like to add. 1967 is the last year when there are no future stars of the 80s in San Remo, although some of them have already entered the mainstream. For example, Massimo Ranieri - the winner of 1987.

Another song dedicated to the tragic death of the talented Italian singer Luigi Tenko is "Festival" by Francesco de Gregori, written in 1976.

Tenko famously shot himself during the 1967 Sanremo festival after his song "Ciao amore ciao" was rejected by the jury.
He wrote this song especially for the festival, where he and Dalida were supposed to perform it in turn. Before the performance, Tenko was very nervous and is said to have taken a sedative along with whiskey. As a result, he practically failed his performance and, although Dalida was, according to eyewitnesses, at the height of her skills, she did not manage to save the situation - the song was rejected on the very first evening. For Tenko it was a blow - he bet too much on success in this festival. Late at night, when everyone, including Dalida, went to a restaurant, he rushed off in his car to the hotel .. and no one else saw him alive. Later that night, Dalida, who came to talk to him and reassure him, found him on the floor of the room in a pool of blood and shot through the head.

A note was found next to the body, in which Tenko wrote that he was "doing this .. in protest against the public who chooses "Me, you and roses" and in the hope that this step will help people at least understand something." Hopes were in vain, the public did not understand anything.

Dalida, who apparently really loved Luigi, was never able to recover from this blow until the end of her life: a month later she tried to commit suicide, but she was pumped out. And until the end of her life, she could not listen without tears to that ill-fated song that caused the death of her dear Luigi - although she performed it quite often. I sang, but I couldn't listen...

The case of Tenko's death was carried out in a terrible hurry - the city authorities had to quickly get rid of the body that interfered with them. The main thing was to continue the festival by all means - show must go on! And so it continued, after a couple of routine phrases about an unpleasant event that shocked the assembled audience.

Tenko was buried in his homeland - in the small town of Rikaldon. Not a single representative of the Italian pop world came to a modest funeral, except for Fabrizio de Andre - they were all either at the festival or at the wedding American singer Gina Pitney.

Perhaps the most striking thing about this story is that all records related to this ill-fated festival have disappeared from the RAI archives. Just - emptiness, there is nothing .. as if it never existed. There is no performance of Tenko himself - only amateur footage of Dalida's rehearsal, of very poor quality. Only photographs remained, and those, in fact, are few. As if someone wanted to erase from the history of the Italian stage this not very pleasant page for her.

And now, after introductory word, you can watch my video with this song: there is a translation under it - just click and the text will open.

The 17th Festival took place from January 26 to 28, 1967. The hosts were Mike Bongiorno and Renata Mauro. The orchestra was led in shifts by 25 conductors. Song won first place Non pensare a me("Don't Think of Me") performed by Claudio Villas And Willows Zanicchi.

Famous foreign performers performed at the festival - Anna German, Connie Francis, Marian Faithfull, British group The Hollies popular duo Sonny and Cher(the singer also performed solo). None of them made it to the final.

TRAGEDY IN SAN REMO ON THE NIGHT OF JANUARY 28
January 26 at the Festival extremely reluctantly with his song Ciao amore ciao spoke popular composer, poet and singer Luigi Tenko. The same song was performed by Delilah. It was she who managed to convince Tenko to put Ciao amore ciao for the competition. The composer himself did not consider it worthy to participate in the Festival. And he turned out to be right. The song did not make it to the final, taking only 12th place as a result of voting. Wherein La rivoluzione Gianni Pettenati, which Tenko considered much worse than his own, managed to get into the final, taking the last 14th place in it. This led the composer into depression. He left the Casino and locked himself in his room at the Savoy Hotel.

There he was discovered by Dalida. A bullet hole gaped in Luigi Tenco's head. And in the hand was clamped suicide note. Later, the examination established that Tenko himself was its author. The composer expressed his disappointment with the musical tastes of Italian society, to which he devoted five years of his life. He asked to consider his suicide as a protest against this decision of the jury...

SONGS - FINALISTS
Non pensare a me (Alberto Testa e Eros Sciorilli) Claudio Villa – Iva Zanicchi
Quando dico che ti amo (Alberto Testa e Tony Renis) Annarita Spinaci – Les Surfs
Proposta (Albula e Giordano Bruno Martelli) Giganti – The Bachelors
La musica e finita (Nisa-Franco Califano-Umberto Bindi) Ornella Vanoni – Mario Guarnera
Io tu e le rose (Daniele Pace-Mario Panzeri-Mario Giacomo Gili-Luigi Barazzetti) Orietta Berti – Les Compagnons de la Chanson
Bisogna saper perdere (Giuseppe Cassia-Ruggero Cini) Lucio Dalla – The Rokes
Dove credi di andare (Sergio Endrigo) Sergio Endrigo – Memo Remigi
Pietre (Pieretti-Ricky Gianco) Gian Pieretti – Antoine
L "immensità (Aldo Caponi-Mogol-Detto Mariano) Johnny Dorelli - Don Backy
Cuore matto (Armando Ambrosino-Totò Savio) Little Tony – Mario Zelinotti
Io per amore (Donaggio-Vito Pallavicini) Pino Donaggio – Carmen Villani
Per vedere quant "è grande il mondo (Mogol-Carlo Donida) Wilma Goich - The Bachelors
E allora dai (Giorgio Gaber) Giorgio Gaber – Remo Germani
La rivoluzione (Mogol-Roberto Soffici) Gianni Pettenati – Gene Pitney

DID NOT GO TO THE FINAL
Canta ragazzina (Prog-Iller Pattacini-Carlo Donida) Bobby Solo – Connie Francis
C "è chi spera (Mario Panzeri-Daniele Pace-Giancarlo Colonnello) Riki Maiocchi - Marianne Faithfull
Ciao amore ciao (Luigi Tenco) Luigi Tenco – Dalida
Dedicato all "amore (Testa-Daniele Pace-Dunnio) Peppino Di Capri – Dionne Warwick
Devi aver fiducia in me (Francesco Specchia-Renato Martini) Roberta Amadei – Carmelo Pagano
È più forte di me (Del Monaco-Enrico Polito) Tony Del Monaco – Betty Curtis
Gi (Pallavicini-Antonio Amurri-Bongusto) Fred Bongusto – Anna German
Guardati alle spalle (Luciano Beretta-Pace) Nicola Di Bari – Gene Pitney
Il cammino di ogni speranza (Umberto Napolitano) Caterina Caselli – Sonny e Cher
Ma piano (per non svegliarmi) (Gianni Meccia) Nico Fidenco – Cher
Nasce una vita (Sergio Bardotti-Fontana) Jimmy Fontana – Edoardo Vianello
Non prego per me (Mogol-Battisti) Mino Reitano – The Hollies
Quando vedrò (Terzi- Carlo Alberto Rossi) Los Marcellos Ferial – The Happenings
Sopra i tetti azzurri del mio pazzo amore (Pallavicini-Modugno) Domenico Modugno – Gidiuli
Una ragazza (Pallavicini-Bruno Pallesi-Malgoni) Donatella Moretti – Bobby Goldsboro
Uno come noi (Umberto Martucci-Giorgio Bertero-Marino Marini) Milva – Los Bravos