Long-standing readers will know that I've always been a fan of the Sanremo Festival, which this year takes place on the evenings of 6th - 10th February. It is great entertainment, comprising, of course, the music but also humour, interviews with stars of stage and screen and other personalities and usually not a few scandals to get us gossiping.
This year, however, I will have a special reason for watching because 27-year-old Damiano Adamo, a hairdresser from Modica, will be joining the hairstyling team for the Festival. At the end of last year, Damiano achieved his dream and opened his own salon in our town and now he has another reason to celebrate. I remember Damiano from another salon where he trained and I know that he studied at ANAM (Accademia Nazionale Acconciatori Moda) and also did a course at Vidal Sassoon in London.
Congratulations and good luck, Damiano and I'll be looking at the hairstyles particularly attentively this year. When you come back, like all of Modica, I'll certainly want to know which stars you met!
If you're visiting Modica you will find Damiano's salon in Via della Costituzione, Modica (RG).
Here I am, almost a week late in posting about the 73rd Sanremo Festival of Italian Song, life and a storm (of which more below) having intervened. I always enjoy Sanremo but this year's festival did not get off to the best of starts, with the singer Blanco (one half of the duo which won last year) deciding to kick around the roses and mostly destroy the set because he had problems with his headphones during his performance. The Mayor of Sanremo was appalled, as were others, and pointed out how much work and time goes into the care of such flowers and the creation of such a set. He did, very tolerantly, I thought, add that we have all been young, and then called for an apology, which was, by all reports, forthcoming. The last I read on the incident was that the singer has been banned from the festival for the next three years. For me the evening was saved by the much loved singer and co-presenter Gianni Morandi, who calmly arrived on stage with a broom and swept like a pro. Do bring your broom round to my house if you find yourself in Sicily, Gianni! There might be a Welshcake in it for you.
I missed the second night of the festival because I fell asleep and on the third night Masterchef Italia was airing on another channel and claimed my attention but the following night's "Cover Night", when the singers in the competition perform versions of other artistes' songs (with another singer of their choice if they wish), was, as always, the best night for me, with the eventual winner of the festival Marco Mengoni giving a wonderful rendition of Let It Be with the Kingdom Choir.
The final night featured two other scandals, or maybe three if you object to uterus-shaped jewellery (worn by co-presenter Chiara Ferragni), a minor one occurring when guest star Gino Paoli inappropriately began recounting the long-ago marital indiscretions (which may or may not have happened) of the partner of another artiste of his heyday and a major one when the rapper Rosa Chemical began twerking at Fedez, seated in the front row, and then dragged the latter onto the stage and snogged him. Signora Ferragni, who happens to be married to Fedez, was said to have been not exactly happy. Neither were many viewers and official complaints quoting "obscene acts" have been presented to the Public Prosecutor of Sanremo. Hmm. I leave the last word on this incident to the Sicilian comic Fiorello who, being interviewed by mobile phone on the show, commented that the next day all the papers would be talking about the clothes and the kiss rather than the songs - and they were.
The clothes, of course, help make Sanremo the fascinating entertainment that it is but I have to admit my eyes were on - well, the eyes. As an older woman, I have been aware for several years that I should by now have thrown out any black eyeliner lurking in my makeup drawers and opted for brown or at least navy blue and I have followed this advice. But black eyeliner was certainly back in vogue at Sanremo, and lots of it, on both young and older artistes. When I was young we all slapped it on after seeing Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra and I remember, at around the same time, an article in a teenage magazine in which the singer Dusty Springfield recommended not taking your eyeliner off at night, but leaving it on and painting the next day's liner over it. I tried this till the substance caked so much that I couldn't open my eyes. It all continued to look great on Liz Taylor and Dusty Springfield, though!
The worthy winner of the competition as a whole was, as I have mentioned, Marco Mengoni with his song Due Vite. I'm not usually very good at predicting the winner, but this time, I managed it - a superb song and fantastic performances. And well done, Sanremo (a town I have visited and remember with affection) and Rai.
In the eye of the storm
A storm like no other I have experienced in nearly eighteen years in Sicily began during the evening of Wednesday 8th February and I had begun to be concerned in the late afternoon when I read that all schools in Modica were to be closed the next day because of bad weather.
By mid-evening, the rain was pelting down relentlessly and I was surprised that the electricity supply held and enabled me to watch Sanremo at all. It didn't in several other areas of the city and I later learned that some homes were without power for as long as 36 hours. The difference between this violent storm and others I have witnessed here was that this one lasted so long - there was no let-up at all until Friday evening, schools remained closed, we were all asked to go out only for essential reasons and I had begun to think that it would never end. It was an extremely scary event to live through alone.
My bedroom flooded, probably because the windows look out onto an open field, whereas the other rooms are partly protected by the surrounding buildings. The rug I keep near the bedroom balcony door became hopelessly wet very quickly and, searching a cupboard for some item to replace it, I came across a box of mat-sized absorbent pads, made of cotton wool backed with plastic, which I had bought when my dog was a puppy. (They didn't work because my dog thought they were for eating and then destroying.) I placed them on the bedroom floor and am happy to report that they did the job, absorbing a lot of the water and at least preventing things from becoming any worse.
The whole Province of Ragusa was affected by the storm but Modica was particularly badly hit this time. Trees and masonry fell, roads became impassable and in the Old Town café tables and chairs were just swept away by the water coursing down the main street. Everyone I have spoken to this week had had to contend with water, to a lesser or greater extent, getting into their homes and it is not an experience any of us wish to see repeated. However, as Sicilians say, this time "Siamo qua" ("We are here").
Let's start with the festival: Sanremo 2022 ended on Saturday, after a great week's entertainment, with an overall win for the duo Mahmood and Blanco and their song Brividi. They will go on to represent Italy with this song at the Eurovision Song Contest in Turin in May so you'll be hearing a lot more of it.
I liked it very much, but I also likes Elisa's song, O forse sei tu, which was beautifully sung and it was nice to see the singer back at the Festival after 20 years. (I've always followed Sanremo, even from Britain.) Elisa came second and also won the the prize for best musical composition. She must have been very pleased as later she skateboarded back to her hotel, still in her beautiful, long, floaty white dress. Brava, Elisa! The Gianni who is so loved in Italy that he is sometimes known as the "Gianni nazionale", the great Gianni Morandi, came third with Apri tutte le porte - Open all the Doors, a song which, with its description of waking up feeling indolent and then being determined to open the doors of life and let the sun in, appealed to everyone's mood. Morandi, with Jovanotti, won the Cover Night (in my opinion always the best night, as I like to wallow in nostalgia) and really the singer has made a fantastic comeback after suffering serious burns to his hands and legs last year in a garden accident. I wish I had his energy!
My favourite song, and therefore the one I voted for, was Irama's Ovunque Sarai - Wherever You Are and he gave it everything on the final night, saying,
" This evening I'm going to sing to remind all who have lost a loved one that love and beauty always remain in the present."
Irama was placed fourth but I'm sure he will win the Festival one day.
It was also good to see female co-presenters who had been chosen not only for their looks but for what they had to say, which was consistently interesting and I mentioned Lorena Cesarini in my post last Thursday. Had there been an elegance prize, it was generally agreed, it would have gone to to Drusilla Foer, the alter ego of the actor Gianluca Gori. It was the first time Sanremo had been co-presented by a celebrity en travestiand well done to the organisers for moving with the times. Last week, I said that if I make it to the age of 82 I want to be like Iva Zanicchi but after the following exchange on Saturday I've decided I don't:
Iva: "How tall you are!"
Drusilla: "Taller than you!"
Iva: "You've got other things I don't have!"
Drusilla: "Yes, I'm cultured."
So Drusilla took the repartee prize too and went on to say that she thought we should stop focussing on our diversity and concentrate on our uniqueness. She is strongly tipped to be the main presenter of Sanremo 2023.
From the Festival to another celebration, that of the Platinum Jubilee of Her Majesty the Queen: I'm not entirely a monarchist, as regular readers will know, but I'm not entirely an anti-monarchist either, absurd though the institution can be. Anyway, my friend Carol King and I decided it would have been churlish not to at least drink a toast to her. I think we have all decided to celebrate whatever moments we can in this third year of the pandemic so a "Lizzie lunch" was planned: I prepared some antipasti - my green tomatoes in balsamic vinegar, Asiago cheese with cotognata (quince paste), dried sausage, sun-dried tomatoes and olives.
We ordered some chicken and chips from a popular rosticceria (as that's a bit British) and a tray of little cakes including these pretty mini-cheesecakes and chocolate cups from my local pasticceria.
As it's carnival time (although many carnivals have been postponed to the spring because of the pandemic) I also got in some traditional chiacchiere biscuits. This is the first time I've seen some drizzled with pistacchio cream instead of chocolate and very good they were too.
As I said, it would have been churlish not to...
People have remarked that the Queen's Accession Day 2022 Message is "perfect pitch" and indeed it hit the right note and concentrated on the positive. Her Majesty had the courage to look to the future and also to grant the wish that she knew would make her son and heir apparent happy - that is, to recognise his wife as future Queen (and not Princess Consort as originally suggested in deference to public opinion almost seventeen years ago). We have all moved on, I think, though many people I have spoken to here are indignant on behalf of the late Diana. My view from abroad is that the British have not forgotten her and even if they had, there are series like The Crown to remind them, but that they have forgiven Charles and come to respect him more. Even future kings can make mistakes in their personal lives and my own view is that he has paid for them.
What, I wonder, would Pope Francis think about that? I don't think he would pass judgement on a non-Catholic marriage but perhaps he would quietly wish Charles, who had great respect for his predecessor-but-one and who postponed his second wedding to attend the latter's funeral, well. It would seem so judging by the humility of this man on Sunday's Che tempo che fa programme. The Pope surprised us all by admitting he had wanted to be a butcher as a child, because, shopping with his mother or grandmother, he had seen that the butcher had a bag into which he put money. Quite a change of vocation! The Pope was most angry about what he described as a crime - the treatment of immigrants - saying that they were being held in what amounted to concentration camps in Libya and he saw war as the cause of most of the world's ills:
"A year without arms and there would be enough food and education for the whole world."
Asked about the suffering of children, Pope Francis said that, despite his faith, he could give no explanation and I admired his honesty.
On a lighter note, he admitted that one of his reasons for not choosing to live in the Papal apartment was that the popes who had lived there before him were saints, while he is not one and he needs people around him, for friendship sustains him. He also said that a sense of humour is like a medicine.
Presenter Fabio Fazio has been criticised today for being a little too humble in this edition of Che tempo che fa but I think he is a great interviewer and he did not avoid difficult questions. And who would not have been overawed when interviewing the Pope?
All these events were pleasant distractions from what is happenng in my own country and I found each of them uplifting. If only I could stop scrolling the news more often!
How lovely it is to see the Sanremo Festival back this year with a live audience in the Ariston Theatre. This, of course, wasn't possible last year, when everyone did their best but presenters like Amadeus and Fiorello need the interaction which only a live audience can provide for them. More importantly, though, being able to watch the much-loved Festival in its usual format is giving Italians a sense of normality and goodness knows, all our psyches need that.
So what were the highlights and controversies of the first two evenings on Tuesday and Wednesday? Well, much will depend on how you view certain matters, for the always original Achille Lauro was the first contestant to get himself into a row and not any old row, but one with the Catholic Church because he appeared, bare-chested, barefoot and tattoed and performed a mock baptism. This led to accusations of blasphemy. The singer defended himself by saying that he had dedicated the performnce to his mother and that mothers give life and therefore renew us every day. Another person to defend him has been Carmelo La Magra, the former priest of Lampedusa, who asked if people only demonstrate their Catholicism when Achille Lauro sings. He also said that the singer is an artist whose job is to deliver messages and advised people to be scandalised about other things and to allow themselves to laugh now and then. Meanwhile the editor of the Vatican City newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, wrote,
"Sanremo is Sanremo. The Osservatore is the Osservatore...... They don't make sinners like they used to."
I rather think that those should be the last words on the controversy but I leave judgement to those more versed in religion than I am.
Like most of my contemporaries, I love a golden oldie type of song and Massimo Ranieri gave us one in Lettera al di là del Mare. I must admit to being rather cross with Mr Ranieri, though, for in a recent interview the singer, who will be 71 in May, talked about his desire to have a son.
"Fortunately a man of a certain age can reproduce and I sincerely hope to do so."
He said he thought he would be an ideal dad - he has a daughter but he didn't recognise her until she was 24 - as he has the body clock of an artist and rarely goes to bed before 3 am. Therefore staying up with a crying baby would not bother him. It may be true, as he says, that 70 is not old these days and as I am just over that age too I am happy to believe him. However, I couldn't help thinking that if a woman of that age expressed her desire to become a mother, she would be widely vilified, as indeed many women twenty years younger have been. Anyway, I enjoyed the song, Massimo.
Next up on this blog is 82-year-old Sanremo veteran Iva Zanicchi, who looked fabulous and belted out a song called Voglio amarti. I must admit I didn't take much notice of the lyrics, as I spent her performance time with my nose almost pressed to the screen trying to work out exactly what shades of eyeshadow she was wearing so that I could copy them. When I heard the song again later, I particularly liked the lines,
E se un giorno scoprirò Nel mio cuore una ruga in più… sarai tu
And if one day I find
Another wrinkle in my heart ... it will be you.
When Iva Zanicchi was placed last in Wednesday night's press and media vote, her reaction was,
"Well, at least they noticed me."
If I make it to 82, I want to be like Iva!
The singer in first place was Elisa, back at Sanremo after twenty years, with O forse sei tu. I, too, thought this was a beautiful song but the public votes which start on Thursday could change everything.
Perhaps the most touching moment on Wednesday night was when co-presenter and actress Lorena Cesarini spoke about her experience of racism, quoting some of the cruel comments she has received on social media since the announcement that she would be co-presenting on Wednesday:
"After Amadeus's announcement I discover that, at 34, it isn't true that I'm an Italian girl like the the others - I'm black... But I keep asking myself, 'Why? Why are there people who have a problem with the colour of my skin?' "
I don't know, Lorena and I can't imagine how this must feel. I can only tell you to keep on being your brilliant self and to hope that we will emerge from the pandemic having learnt that we are all human and must stand together.
I am not watching Sanremo tonight (Thursday) because Masterchef Italia requires my attention but I'll be watching tomorrow and on Saturday (the final night) and will probably take part in the public vote.
Throughout this post, I shall be posting links rather than videos as there are no official clips, as yet, on youtube, presumably for copyright reasons.
I also enjoyed the appearance of a favourite man of mine, chef and MasterChef Italia judge Carlo Cracco last night. Goodness, Carlo scrubs up well! He had time to tell us that the dish he would choose for presenter Carlo Conti is a Tuscan ribollita and for co-presenter Maria De Filippi spaghetti with tomato sauce, "because it's every Italian's favorite dish." She, lucky girl, got a kiss from chef Carlo, before the other Carlo sent him back to the kitchen.
There couldn't have been a dry eye in the house last night when Zucchero sang a duet with a virtual Luciano Pavarotti and the press dubbed this performance "the real winner." You can see this here from 01.38.00 mins.
I thought the best song in the whole competition was this one, which was knocked out on the fourth evening and I also liked this and this, both of which made it to the final evening. The winning song was this, ably performed by Francesco Gabbani and a monkey and I can say for it that it certainly cheered everybody up!
The Sanremo Festival always makes good TV and I thought I'd keep you abreast of it tonight. I haven't decided on a favourite song yet but I have no doubt about my favourite moment so far: it happened last night when the underwiring in singer Giorgia's gorgeous dress failed her.
Hasn't it happened to every woman - that moment when your strapless bra refuses to behave, you're in the middle of the street and you just want to get somewhere where you can hitch it up? Giorgia finished her song and then, when presenter Carlo Conti came to interview her, calmly handed him the mike and, with a style that brooked no nonsense from either the underwiring or her boobs, yanked the dress into position. You can see the moment here.
"I'm not very well-endowed", joked the singer.
Believe me, Giorgia, it happens even when you're more - err,... curvy. Well done, though - you have freed women everywhere!
Sanremo voting is in process as I write and my support this year goes to Irene Fornaciari for this song about migrants travelling by sea. It is fair to say that opinion in Italy is very divided about the song, which was previously at risk of elimination from the competition.
I cannot let the Carnevale season pass without posting a photo of yummy chiacchiere biscuits! Chiacchierare is the verb "to gossip" and the biscuits are so named either because their shape resembles that of old women's tongues [say some, unkindly] or, more likely, because of the "psst" sound they make when the pastry is dropped into the hot oil.
Meanwhile the earth of Sicily has been unable to let the season go without - well, shaking us all up a bit. There were two earthquake tremors near here in the early hours of Sunday and a further two on Monday morning [none of which I felt but friends say they did]. However, I certainly did feel a tremor at 16.35 yesterday and this one, originally reported to have been a 4.6 tremor but later reclassified as 4.2, was scary. The depth of this tremor was reported as 4 km and it was felt in many places in the Province of Ragusa but also in Siracusa and Catania. The epicentre [originally thought to have been in Siracusa] is now said to have been the hamlet of San Giacomo Bellocozzo in Ragusa Province. No injuries were reported but some plaster has fallen off the Cathedral of San Giorgio in Ragusa Ibla. A further, smaller tremor was reported just after 18.00.
Schools in Modica and Giarratana will be closed tomorrow but there is some confusion as to whether this is because of the tremors. If it is, it seems a sensible precaution to check the buildings but most schools in Modica were going to be closed anyway as part of the Carnevale holiday.
Sicilians have expressed their hurt and frustration at the lack of coverage of the tremors by the main news networks,who preferred to concentrate on the Sanremo Festival which began tonight. This part of Sicily is rooting for Giovanni Caccamo from Modica and Deborah Iurato from Ragusa, who are performing a duet called Via da qui. Their success would certanly cheer us up!
From a singer who caused all of Italy to fall in love with her to one who has caused considerable outrage and quite a few divisions: The artist in question is Roberto Vecchioni, the singer-songwriter who won the 2011 Sanremo Festival with Chiamami ancora amore, a song he composed with a view to giving hope, particularly to young people, at the height of the global financial crisis. So what, I ask myself, has got into him? The Palermo traffic seems to be part of the answer.
Speaking at the Engineering Faculty of Palermo University last week, Roberto Vecchioni expressed his exasperation with Sicily, even going so far as to call it a "shit island". Coming in from the airport, he said, he had seen 400 out of 200 [yes, you read that right] motorcyclists riding without the obligatory helmets and there were three lines of traffic in the middle of every road, making it impossible to get through. This, he continued, shows that Sicilians have not yet understood how to live side by side. He believes that the island is ruining its own culture and cannot keep citing the fact that it has wonderful beaches as an excuse for everything. In short, Sicily is letting itself down.
As you may imagine, this caused strong reactions both inside and outside the conference hall, which many people left early. However, support for Mr Vecchioni's views has come from an unlikely source, namely Leoluca Orlando, Mayor of Palermo, who said that Roberto Vecchioni had proved himself to be a friend of Sicily in the past. He also said that Sicily deserves much more than it has today and that Sicilians must choose the right path for the future.
Sorry, Britain, but I'll be rooting for Il Volo in Eurovision tonight! I posted their entry song in February, when they won Sanremo but it's so lovely that I know you won't mind my posting it again. Good luck, boys!
Here's another song I liked from this year's Sanremo. Written by Grazia Di Michele herself, it is a gentle song about hypocrisy and prejudice. I thought it was beautifully performed:
Grazia Di Michele e Mauro Coruzzi - Io sono una finestra
I'm a sort-of retired language teacher from Cardiff, Wales, UK, now trying to make a new life in Sicily. I'm not growing vines, making olive oil or restoring a palace stone by stone!
