Spanish-born actress Penelope Cruz is to grace the stage next month at Italy's annual extravaganza of glitz and pop, the Sanremo song festival.
The 36-year-old star of Volver is the hottest name on the list of international showbiz VIPs who will be expected to pump up the hype surrounding the festival and pull in TV viewers.
Cruz's presence was announced by festival compere Pippo Baudo on Monday at the official presentation of Sanremo 2007. He gave no details about what her appearance would involve.
In the past actor stars such as John Travolta, Hugh Grant, Will Smith and Sharon Stone have been given half-hour slots to be interviewed live on stage between sections of the song contest.
Cruz, who has just received an Oscar nomination for her lead role in Pedro Almodovar's Volver, learned to speak Italian in 2004 for her part in Italian director Sergio Castelitto's film Non ti muovere (Don't Move). In that film she played a destitute woman called Italia who has a torrid affair with an uppercrust surgeon. Learning the language paid off, at least in Italy, because she went on to win the Italian equivalent of the Oscars for Best Actress.
Foreign musical guests booked in for the five-day festival, which starts on February 27, include a trio of soul music stars: young British singer Joss Stone, sophisticated American songstress Norah Jones and fellow American John Legend.
New York glam-pop band The Scissor Sisters will also provide a foreign musical interlude between the Italian songs competing for the top prize.
But Baudo, organising his 12th Sanremo festival, vowed on Monday that this year foreign guests and other glamorous frills would not be allowed to hog the limelight.
"We have to get back to the festival of Italian songs. Recently the non-essentials have dominated, at the expense of the singers," he said.
He also promised a "modern" spectacle, in which commercial elements would be downplayed and the "art" of the singers and musicians emphasised.
Baudo has also recruited a collection of top Italian comedians to keep audience spirits high during the five evenings on which Sanremo will be broadcast live on national TV.
