The annual glitzy song contest of San Remo, which has already become a national obsession in Italy, launched last night. The contest will continue over the entire week presenting 18 songs by the "big" - already established singers and groups, and 12 "new entries" - younger groups which have not hit the mainstream yet.
Arguments about the festival began weeks ago, revolving around who has been chosen to participate, who is presenting and even the quality of the lyrics of the songs and their length. One song, of Anna Oxa, exceeds the allotted four minutes and has caused the irritation of other signers.
Last night's opening show got off to a rather quiet start, with only Victoria Cabello providing some real entertainment for the night. She interviewed John Travolta on stage, who represented the "super-star" guest of the night, and with her impeccable English accent revealed her mixed origins since her mother is English and her father Italian. Giorgio Panariello, a typically over the top comedian, was the main presenter of the night but did not manage to make an impact. Ilary Blasi, the wife of the famous footballer Totti, was a co-presenter as well.
Every year organisers of the festival, which runs for six days, are under pressure to ensure television viewing figures are high. Presenters who oversee festivals when numbers drop tend to have this 'failure' hang over them for many years afterwards.
The head of the state broadcaster's RAI-1 channel, which airs the festival live for three hours each night, tried to play down lessen the pressure at the presentation press conference. "Our objective isn't to beat the record. If the figures are the same or even a a few percentage points down, it won't be a tragedy," Fabrizio del Noce said.
So far, the foreign stars engaged to do a turn on the stage at the Ariston theatre include US wrestling star John Cena, Britain's 'Mr Bean' actor Rowan Atkinson and American comedy filmmaker Steve Martin .
Singing guests will include sexy American pop stars Anastacia and Christina Aguilera, who will duet with home boys in the shape of pop icon Eros Ramazzotti and pop opera star Andrea Bocelli.
Meanwhile, frenzied negotiations were reportedly under way Monday to engage more stars for later evenings. The names flying around on newspaper pages included names from the world of cinema such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Hilary Swank, Robert De Niro.
As usual Italian politics has also been drawn into the "festival of Italian song". This time it is because elections are only six weeks away and so any political utterances on television are supposed to be limited to a few set programmes.
The fear is that one of the guests will say something attacking Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi or his rival,
opposition leader Romano Prodi. Festival presenter Panariello invited a leftwing comic to take part on one evening, but then the RAI chief said he would have to read what the comedian was going to say first.
Panariello has also promised to give a sort of comic monologue revolving around the problem of avoiding politics on TV.
