Sanremo Special 2023
Vacuous... yet somehow profound?
On Tuesday night, at precisely 9:15 pm, over ten million people tuned in to RAI1 to watch the opening of the Sanremo music festival. Yes, you read that correctly: ten million people! A huge number. One in six Italians to be precise; and 67% of the TV audience share that evening. These are some of the festival’s all time highest viewing figures; comparable (almost) to the internationally famous HBO series Game of Thrones in terms of engagement. So what’s all the fuss about? Sanremo is baffling, exciting, bizarre, fun and vaguely unsettling event. In theory it’s a straightforward song contest - a national format which inspired Eurovision - but it’s also so much more than that. This is a moment of collective reflection. A time when gossip, politics and all manner of social controversies come to the foreground and all to the beat of schmaltzy love ballads. Love it? Hate it? Never seen it? Don’t get it? Don’t worry. In this special edition of the newsletter I’ll try and get you up to speed.
First — and particularly for those entirely out of the loop — I highly recommend a quick listen to the latest Italian Files podcast “From Sanremo to Eurovision” in which Thea Lenarduzzi and her guest Giulia Cavalierre together provide a crystal clear 30-minute overview of the festival’s history, from its origins in the aftermath of WWII as a glitzy American-inspired antidote to decades of life under fascism, right the way up to today’s postmodern, corrupt, sleazy incarnation. The hosts talk about love songs, ballads and the orchestral pop spirit that fuelled hits like Domenico Modugno’s “Volare”, and Lucio Battisti’s “Un'avventura,” honing in, in particular, on the shared nature of the experience. Because, for all its ugliness, or so they argue, Sanremo is democratic in spirit: it’s about conviviality, contemporaneousness, the public vote, and a fair contest between old veterans and new unknown artists. Everyone competes, at least in theory, on an equal playing field.
I have to admit I haven’t tuned into the festival much this year — I just haven’t had the time. Watching Sanremo requires a surprising amount of effort and concentration. Each episode is five to six hours long, running well into the early morning hours. The 28 competing artists are made to repeat their songs again and again and again; performing (I think) three times over the course of the week. This year’s frontrunners include Marco Mengoni with ‘Due Vite’, Madame with ‘Il bene nel male’ and Elodie with ‘Due’. My favourite track, however, at least from a cursory catch-up over breakfast today, is ‘L’addio’ by Come_Cose — an indie/hip-hop duo who debuted at the festival a couple of years back with a banging tune called ‘Fiamme negli occhi’ which was a joyful celebration of their electric, romantic chemistry. This time round the couple are singing about their subsequent break-up and reconciliation. A bold move indeed! Fausto’s voice is admittedly pretty dire. But it doesn’t really matter. This is a beautiful performance in spite of all its flaws; an understated and fun riff on the whole Italian AMORE obsession and it’s charged with intense little gestures and an appropriately cheesy choreography. It’s charming, and utterly, utterly naff.
The point about this festival however – if you didn’t get it already – isn’t so much the music itself as the TV spectacle. Sanremo is, quite literally, a spectacularized reflection of society, an excuse to gossip, vent and collectively deal with potentially controversial issues in a controlled environment. Things got off to a dramatic start this year when the singer Blanco smashed up parts of the stage in frustration at various audio problems [see 1:20 of the video below for the precise moment]. The crowd was furious. When the young man finished his set the auditorium was filled with boos and hisses, and the presenter, Amadeus, struggled to regain control of the situation. Nevertheless, for a brief 12 hours, Blanco was Italy’s “most memed celebrity”. Across the peninsula, kids were busy making photo-shoppped images of the singer to share on TikTok (as, by the way, were comms staff in some of the nation’s biggest institutions, including the team at the Uffizi galleries in Florence who posted this rather wry response). Even today, 48 hours on, YouTube commenters are still busy speculating whether his “rage filled gesture” was really as spontaneous as it seemed, or whether it was all, in fact, a publicity stunt. Whatever the truth, Blanco is unlikely to care much: his Spotify metrics are now through the roof and he’ll be moonwalking to the bank either way.
Other 2023 “dramas” have been (slightly) more substantive. Chiara Ferragni, a well-known fashion influencer with 28.6M followers delivered a cringe-worthy monologue onstage yesterday evening in which she narrated a “letter” to her “childhood self” warning of the perils of fame, the “difficulties of being a major brand” and being of so “successful” as a woman. Ferragni has also been wearing various outfits designed to “promote body positivity” during this year’s festival, and she’s made several statements criticising patriarchal scrutinising of female beauty standards (one might well argue that this is a little hypocritical given Ferragni’s brand is almost entirely geared-over to aggressively marketing a normative idea of femininity at teenage audiences on social media — but let’s not even go there...)
And who could forget the politicians? On opening night Sergio Mattarella, President of the Republic, made a brief appearance at Sanremo’s Ariston Theatre during which time he gave a brief speech about the importance of the Italian Constitution. Matteo Salvini, the far-right Minister of the Interior, who has long been seeking to overhaul the Italian Republic’s founding document, responded by openly attacking Mattarella for attempting to “impose his ideology” on the masses while also criticising the festival staff for dedicating too much time to “non musical issues.” Hum.
All of which takes us to the apex of the hysteria. This coming Saturday, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, is (or was) scheduled to deliver a video presentation as part of Sanremo’s live finale. A few days ago, however, the festival team was forced to renege on this decision following protests from leaders of just about all of the major political parties, including radical left groups, who argued that such a gesture would constitute “the militarisation of entertainment TV” (yes, really). Instead, the presenters will apparently limit themselves to reading a written text about the strong bonds between Italy and Ukraine; a compromise which, just as absurdly, seems to have pacified all those who were so disgruntled just a few days ago.
So yes, basically, Sanremo 2023 has been as mind-bendingly superficial as ever. This is a totally vacuous occasion, which at the same time reveals something oddly profound about Italy. Yes, we all know the country is conservative, and holds its traditions close — and we also know that women’s lives and bodies continue to be framed, relentlessly, in patriarchal terms. But as neoliberalism continues to implode it’s also clear that Italy’s changing, and faster than some might wish. New economic models, and new subjectivities are thriving; though not always for the better. The public debate about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is among the least coherent and most inconsistent in Europe, and, for all its pretences of moderation, the current far-right government is placing subtle and not so subtle pressures on key democratic institutions, including public service broadcasting. Many people reject Sanremo out of hand as a silly diversion. I disagree. If you really want to understand Italy today, this festival is - for better or worse - a perfect space from which to gauge the national mood. If you can stomach it that is.
The Sanremo festival is available to stream live and worldwide on RaiPlay all week. Watch it here.
About Me
My name is Jamie Mackay (@JacMackay) and I’m an author, editor and translator based in Florence. I’ve been writing about Italy for a decade for international media including The Guardian, The Economist, Frieze, and Art Review. I launched ‘The Week in Italy’ to share a more direct and regular overview of the debates and dilemmas, innovations and crises that sometimes pass under the radar of our overcrowded news feeds.
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