Who won in Sanremo and a song to remember

TO two weeks from the end of 74th Sanremo Festival (the first one I followed from behind the scenes), let’s try to draw a gender balance.

Ten years after Arisa’s victory, another woman returns to the top step of the podium. But Angelina Mango conquers Sanremo thanks to the Festival’s tripartite voting mechanismwhich gives televoting the same weight that is given to the choices of the press room and those of the radio.

The televoting alone would have designated Geolier the winner. And the streaming and platform charts have so far crowned Mahmood and Geolier himself, followed closely by Angelina and Annalisa.

In short, women win in Sanremo because an elite of professionals choose them. It can be a title of merit or not, depending on your point of view. Women certainly don’t yet dominate the music charts in our country.

And if you have a different impression it’s because, where the numbers don’t prove them right, the star system elevates them to icons of style, beauty and personality. All qualities that in fact are not lacking.

Returning to the Festival, I was struck by the image conveyed by the competing singers, compared with that of Gigliola Cinguettireturned to sing, after 60 years, the piece that had consecrated her when she was just sixteen: I’m not old enough. A virginal text compared to which the strength and awareness expressed by the competing performers stand out even more clearly.

Big Mama’s image is powerful with her piece against body shamingironic and seductive in the evening of duets with Gaia, La Nina and Sissi in an overwhelming Lady Marmalade. Annalisa’s performance together with the list representative on the cover of was explosive Sweet Dreams.

And what about the veterans Fiorella Mannoia and Loredana Bertè? The first in the race with a hymn to everything a woman can be. Proudly. The second, interpreter of the text that we all sang at the top of our lungs: «I’m crazy about myself / Yes, because I hated myself enough… I don’t need anyone who forgives me, I do it alone». Words that should be printed in textbooks and made to be memorized, like The rain in the pine forest.

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All articles by Antonella Baccaro

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