Pop Ideal

For five nights, from 4th to the 8th of March this year, a third of the Italy's population will be watching. It will be broadcast live in over 30 countries. Europe's largest musical event, Il Festival della Canzone Italiana has become a quintessentially Italian tradition since its conception in 1951. Dedicated to Italian popular music, the annual festival in the elite Ligurian resort of San Remo, will reach its 53° Edizione and once again prove the Italian appetite for glamour and spectacle.

The format of the festival is well established and was the inspiration for the Eurovision Song Contest (started in 1954 as a light-hearted remedy for post-war antipathy). There are two gare, one for i giovani, and another for i campioni, also known as i big. There are 16 giovani selected from a series of broadcasts of Destinazione Sanremo running up to the festival, and finalists of the Accademia della Canzone Italiana. Many now-famous faces have been lit by their first spotlight here. The 18 campioni are invited to attend by the Commissione Artistica and mostly include a range of usual suspects from Italian pop's mediocrity.

All contestants have to sing a new song; the same house band plays the music for all of them. The Giuria Demoscopica from ten regions, and the Giuria Spezzializzata of San Remo, decide the winners who are destined to have the top-selling albums soon after.

The two competitions, although the core of the festival, often play second fiddle to other protagonists. There are i comici such as Benigni who revel in the limelight of this unparalleled stage, often insulting musicians, presenters, politicians, and even the Pope. There are gli ospiti stranieri bright stars from the world-wide rock and pop scene. Madonna upset the Church in 1998, Eminem upset almost everyone in 2001. And 2000 saw U2 and Pavarotti campaigning for the forgiveness of Third World debt. The Prime Minister had to make a statement shortly after promising a government re-think of the issue.

Centre-stage for the event is Pippo Baudo, compare and San Remo institution. He is accompanied each year by two new models, una bionda e una mora. The essential credentials are fame and glamour. They are not necessarily Italian (Claudia Schiffer has done it) and sometimes know just enough of the language to present the next act.

Il Festival della Canzone Italiana is not only the pop music date in the Italian calendar, but a huge televisual event. Raiuno broadcasts the festival in its entirety for five nights. There is also, Il Dopofestival, a programme focussing on singers' performances and whatever the paparazzi is surrounding off-stage. It could be seen as the model, not only for other festivals, but also for the globally popular TV shows now dedicated to finding new pop stars. It is pop ideal.

For more information about the festival including this year's contestants and guests, visit the RAI website: http://www.rai.it/sanremo
Il Festival della Canzone Italiana— The Sanremo Music Festival
gare — competitions
i giovanivi— the newcomers
i campioni — the champions
i comici — the comedians
gli ospiti stranieri — the foreign guests
una bionda e una mora— a fair-haired woman and dark-haired woman