The judgement of the 57th Sanremo Festival has been finalized, and first place was handed to Simone Cristicchi (pictured above) for singing/rapping "ti regalero' una rosa". For those curious, Youtube link here.
Piero Mazzocchetti also worked it hard this past week, and won third place for his presentation of "Schiavo d'Amore" (Youtube link here), which was song originally written for Roberto Alagna.
And then we heard that, um, whaaaa........zzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Imagine dying and going to a place where particularly bad episodes of American Idol are on 24 hours a day, for all eternity.
Well, that's Paradise.
Hell is not other people, Hell is Festival di Sanremo. And I am in Hell.
Opera Chic -- so that you don't have to -- is trying to watch as much as she can of the whole sorry singing mess (ie, about 10 minutes a night, but YouTube helps).
In a nutshell: it's the 30 lamest singers in Italy, fighting each other to the death in a Eurovision-style (actually the formula was born at Sanremo and exported to Eurovision), 5 nights of nightmare. The TV audience at home votes via txt message or whatever. On Saturday night, an especially bad singer wins.
Suffice to say that these two dorks, apparently, have a standing chance of winning the Festival -- they're a tuneless, voiceless duo where only one remotely even tries to sing and the other isn't even that cute. Italian teenagers apparently go nuts for the two pimply-faced Roman twentysomethings -- they're emo + Peter Gabriel on a morphine drip, so bad that their record company enlisted Nelly "Sono In Retardo" Furtado to accompany them in a trio that is as ill-advised as it sounds, AND SHE MANAGED TO MAKE THE SONG BETTER.
Appropriately, they're named "Zero Assoluto", Absolute Zero. We give them a "0", and get us an Absolut, please (Opera Chic is partial to Grey Goose, but whatevs).
Another catastrophically bad specimen we've had to endure is this lady -- a weird, dragqueenerrific Cabaret/Lounge Singer/TripHop act whose only impressive talent seems to be the ability to solicit catty comments (unprintable here) by Opera Chic's friends for her Cirque De Amneris looks and weirdykins unibrow.
Tomorrow night, then, the "Finale", and the winners. I'll have to watch.
Now I really need a drink.
Opera Chic was busy re-reading Goethe's Götz von Berlichingen (löl ich bin eine löllercoaster löl) when a sms came ringing on her Samsung BlackJack to quickly turn the SKY satellite to Rai Uno.
Oh gawd.
I had tried to forget: The Sanremo Festival had started this evening! There on the screen, dressed all in black, was the Roberto Alagna Sanremo replacement Mr. Piero Mazzocchetti, belting-out the song that was originally commissioned for the Aida-walk-off tenor to premiere live, "Schiavo d'Amore".
Mazzocchetti, one of the twenty other singers currently crooning lame Italian pop at the 57th Sanremo Festival, deftly premiered the song a little while ago, which was promised to be sung by Alagna before the predictable cancellation on January 7, 2007.
Although many Milanese have wiped their hands of Alagna forever after his Aida walk-off, we all agree that at least Alagna saved his last, dying shred of dignity by cancelling participation in the painfully lame Sanremo.
Also, like Shannen Doherty and Paris Hilton before him, one of Mazzocchetti eyes are slowly fighting their way off his face. That is all.