Table of contents:
- How a world famous festival grew out of a small song contest
- Celebrities at the festival and high-profile events in San Remo
- Festival San Remo and its popularity in the USSR
Video: Why the Italians from San Remo were so loved in the USSR: the history of the festival's triumph
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
The world loves singing Italians - whether the song sounds from the balcony or from the stage. And they cannot leave indifferent those who remember the triumphal concerts in the Soviet Union of the participants and winners of the San Remo festival: Toto Cutugno, Al Bano and Romina Power, Gianni Morandi - and many more, beautiful and beloved, forever associated with memories of youth, discos, miraculously got tickets to concerts - or, at worst, with stories from parents about those times.
How a world famous festival grew out of a small song contest
The festival was invented in the post-war period, when the inhabitants of the Apennines especially needed something not only fresh, joyful, optimistic, but also as Italian as possible. Of course, the music was perfect for this purpose. Therefore, in 1948, a national song festival took place in the town of Versilia. The idea was appreciated not only by the artists. The administrator of the casino in San Remo, Pierre Bussetti, started organizing a similar competition in his city, especially since the Versilles festival was not continued due to lack of funding.
San Remo, the "city of flowers" in the north-west of Italy, was famous even before the war as a favorite resort place for aristocrats and the rich. In 1951, there, in the casino building, took place the first festival of those that are held annually up to the present time. Then it got the name "Festival of Italian Songs".
It was a little like a modern show. The spectators were seated at tables, they were served by waiters, and artists performed on a small stage. There were few of them, only three. During the three days of the festival, from January 29 to January 31, they performed twenty songs, then the winner was Nilla Pizzi. The final of the festival was then broadcast on the radio. Four years later, the competition also hit television - and the popularity of the song festival in San Remo began to skyrocket.
The sixties were truly golden years in the history of the festival. Getting into the competition - especially since tens of millions of music lovers watched it live - became a prestigious start or continuation of a musical career, and a large number of Italian pop stars, in turn, brought the competition even more popularity. In the first years of the festival, one song was performed by two different artists, the arrangements of the compositions were also different. Sometimes the "second" version was performed by a foreign singer.
Since 1964, performers from other countries began to come to San Remo, they performed songs in Italian and as part of duets. So Louis Armstrong, Stevie Wonder, Paul Anka, Shirley Bassey took part in the festival over the years. Brazilian singer Roberto Carlos was among the winners of the 1968 festival. And a year earlier, the Polish singer Anna German came to San Remo as a participant, but she did not, however, become the winner.
Celebrities at the festival and high-profile events in San Remo
The history of the San Remo Festival is associated with a tragic incident in 1967, when, after losing, the 29-year-old singer Luigi Tenco committed suicide. Shortly before that, his romance with the singer Dalida began, and their creative union arose. Dalida and Tenko came to the competition in San Remo with the song "Goodbye, love, goodbye", which took only seventeenth place. The singer, by that time experiencing problems with alcohol and tranquilizers, took the defeat extremely painfully and took his own life on the night after the results were announced.
The winners that year were Claudio Villa and Iva Zanucci. Both of them have won the festival more than once, Villa has received awards four times, Zanucci three. The San Remo Festival has been the starting point for many success stories. Most of the world-famous and especially beloved in the Soviet Union, and then in Russia, Italian performers once participated and won at the San Remo festival. In 1970 the winner of the competition was Adriano Celentano, in 1984 - Al Bano and Romina Power with the song "Ci sara", in 1986 - Eros Ramazzotti, in 1994 - Andrea Bocelli.
Until 1977, the festival was held in the very casino where it was held for the first time, and after the building was closed for renovation, the theater "Ariston" in San Remo became the scene of action, at first temporarily and then permanently. The seventies in the history of the Italian song contest were a period of recession, not least due to the crisis in the Italian economy. Few stars and many debutants - as a result, not very high interest in the festival from non-Italian spectators.
Festival San Remo and its popularity in the USSR
But in the eighties, when the festival turned into a TV show, a real boom began - including in the USSR. Soviet audiences have discovered many Italian names that will become their favorite performers for decades. In 1984, the whole country watched the festival on television. Italians were invited to perform on the Moscow and Leningrad stages - and they gathered whole stadiums. Tony Esposito, Pupo, Toto Cutugno, Gianni Morandi, the Ricky e Believe group - and other famous Italians came to the USSR with concerts.
Throughout the long history of the San Remo festival, its rules have changed more than once, but some remain constant. Only original songs that have not previously been performed in public take part in the competition, and the authors of these songs must certainly be Italians, even if the composition is performed by a foreign artist or in another language.
Participants compete in two categories - one includes compositions of already famous performers, the other provides for the rivalry of young singers. The festival lasts five days and is held in mid-February. 2020 was no exception. Shortly before Italy was at the center of the coronavirus pandemic, the San Remo festival once again welcomed participants. The winner this time was Antonio Diodato.
The festival became the inspiration for the European song contest - "Eurovision". It is the winner of the San Remo song contest who then represents Italy in this major European competition.
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