(ANSA) - ROME, FEB 08 - "The others decided for me, as always happens. I didn't think about the Festival, I didn't want the stress of that week and moreover when I and Osvaldo called me we were fighting with covid and we risked being hospitalized. But then I realized that they were right, that it was the right way to celebrate 55 years of career and for all my collaborators ".
Orietta Berti, 29 years after her last participation in Sanremo, when she competed with Giorgio Faletti, is ready to land on the Riviera for the twelfth time, with the song When you fell in love.
A very long absence, "because I felt satisfied by something else and did not feel the need to go, I have done and do a lot of television, many concerts".
In the festival ever as this year under 30 traction, the national Orietta admits that it does not know a good half of the singers in the competition.
"Amedeo - he prefers to call Amadeus like this - has brought all genres: there is an artist for every taste. Me? As Iva Zanicchi told me, I will be the standard-bearer, representing the roots of Italian melody, as I have always done and will continue to do".
After the festival, a six-disc box set will be released, entitled My life is a film.
"Four CDs from the past, one diduets and one with 22 unreleased. The Oscar of my life? The duration of this career", he underlines.
(HANDLE).