Walter Vacchino, I tell the story of the magic of Ariston - News

In 1985, Duran Duran arrived in Sanremo, with fans fainting, hysterics and locks of hair being torn out, with Simon Le Bon himself paying the price with a broken foot (but someone will talk about an accident on the rocks).

The year before on the Riviera, Queen was here: the record companies impose playback on everyone and so when

, wearing trousers, white tank top and red leather jacket, sings Radio Ga Ga, in a fit of anger he does nothing to avoid show that they are not performing live.

In 1987 the public gave Whitney Houston, then 23 years old, perhaps the longest standing ovation ever given to the festival and

convinced the artist to grant an encore on All At Once: it was the first time for an international star.

The following year, the final hosted the legend

, but hosts

and Gabriella Carlucci suffered sensational amnesia: they forgot to ask him to sing some Beatles hits, despite a white piano already placed in a corner of the stage.

    To line up anecdotes from backstage, whims of stars and episodes that have ended up in the annals - from Baudo correcting the ending to

- is

, owner of the cinema-theatre with his sister Carla, in the book

" (

pp.160, 18.00 euros), written with Luca Ammirati, head of the press room for some years, out on January 16th.

A box identified first of all by the facade and the sign that ends up everywhere, on TV, on the covers, in the shots posted on social media by passers-by and VIPs, always rigorously the same, with the letters positioned by hand on the notice board with the writing 'Festival della Italian song' and related dates.

    But not everyone knows that at the origin of everything there is an entrepreneurial history that dates back to the 1950s.

, who was 6 years old at the time the first stone was laid.

It was his father Aristide who designed a multiplex capable of hosting every type of show: it took him ten years to complete its construction, amidst bureaucratic slowdowns and hostility from the competition, but in 1963 he managed to inaugurate his jewel.

"Today, of the many people who worked here, I would like to remember Roberto Coggiola, for years a pillar of the Tenco award, and Gino Cappone, the theatre's technical chief", for years the only one who had the keys to every dressing room.

Parts of that silent anthill of dozens of technicians who work during the show among monitors, green and red lights, consoles, jungles of hanging cables and tons of equipment.

    The only witness to all the editions of 1997 - when the festival moved from the Casino theater to the Ariston - Vacchino does not hesitate to define "the most difficult festival that of Covid, because until the very end it was not known whether it would be done or less. And then it was done, but as if in a bubble, between safety measures and swabs: Amadeus and Fiorello were very good at bringing home the unthinkable and in the end Sanremo gave the

a boost , thrilling the world with their rock".

    The organization and Rai reacted to the objective limits of the theater's structure by "involving the city with widespread stages, from the sea to Piazza Colombo, to confirm that Sanremo is the city of music: but the 'there' always comes from the Ariston ", specifies with a smile Vacchino, who among the characters he is most fond of mentions

" and underlines that "in the world of entertainment the word given is worth it, the trust in the person even before the contract with the artist".

And if it is true that "the fate of the festival is decided in the first ten minutes", it is also true that "the artists, when they return to the Ariston outside the event, have a different way of presenting themselves and often come into closer contact directly with the public".

Also because the Ariston is not just a festival, but it is also dance ("Carla Fracci and Rudolf Nureyev were at home here") and it is above all theatre: "I think of

, who came on various occasions, from a very young age, and that he will return with his own show", he announces.

"And I also think of events built around characters like

, who on April 12th will dedicate an evening to art, to confirm our attention to beautiful things".

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