When you start to read this story you’re going to say, “Susan lost her mind. Shouldn’t she have written this story before the last story?”
No, I haven’t lost my mind, I held the story because this week on February 7th, is the beginning of Sanremo Festival 2023.
Now I know this is an old story and everyone knows it but, no, not everyone! The new fans, and there are many, know the guys won Sanremo but they don’t know how it came to be. So, for you old fans out there, I ask for your patience while the new fans hear the amazing story of Sanremo.
When I read Un’avventura Straordinaria, the guy’s biography, the story that I loved the most was the story of Sanremo. The decision by the guys to take on the Sanremo Festival. This story brought out their personalities, their differences and how they are so bound to one another that they could make the decision of a lifetime together even if it meant they could lose what was most important to them, their country and their people!
We know 2014 started out as a bad year, but suddenly things were happening. They were invited to sing at the Italian Senate. This was an event of immense importance for them. It said Italy was finally noticing them so, it only made sense that it was time to take a giant step!
So now I will flash back to Sanremo 2015 and Bringing the Lion Home
The lion for those who don’t know it is the Lion of Sanremo which is the award that the winner receives.
The Festival of Sanremo is a singing event held annually in Sanremo, Italy during the winter season. It is the most famous pop music event in Italy and a major media event on Italian television.
It currently takes place at the Teatro Ariston between late February and early March. The festival is essentially a singing competition among performers presenting original songs in premiere, never performed publicly before, composed by Italian authors, and voted by juries and/or by popular vote.
The winner of the 2015 Sanremo festival was Il Volo with the song, Grande Amore!
But this story doesn’t start with Sanremo, nor does it end there! Sanremo was the door opener!
They will tell you that the decision to go to Sanremo was a good one but, in contrast going to Eurovision may not have been their best decision. My reply, going to Eurovision was an excellent decision!
Let’s see how these decisions were made and what path they chose….
The Decision
So where do you begin to make the decision. Well, you have to start with….
Who’s in and who’s out!
Who’s in?
From day one, Gianluca wanted to go. He was so convinced that they would win that he never backed down from it. He had no doubt in his mind that they would win.
Who’s out?
Always the pessimist, Ignazio. He said “No, we can’t win. It’s too hard.”
So that leaves Piero! Piero at first was not on board but Gianluca persuaded him. Gianluca said, “No one trusted, no one believed it. It was I who persuaded Piero to persuade Ignazio to go to Sanremo. Because I told them: ‘Guys, if we go, we’ll win it, I’m sure, I’m sure’”.
Piero said, “We said to ourselves: ‘Guys, make it or break it, in the end, we were not anyone here in Italy, at most we would not be anyone even afterwards.’”
Decision made! It’s official the guys go to Sanremo!
Then there’s the second problem, the song!
At Sanremo you must perform an unpublished song. How do you begin to find such a song?
Now this is the part of the story that’s really interesting and sometimes funny! Oddly enough, the one who wanted this the most was the one who did not agree to the song. I so enjoyed listening to this dialogue between the guys. This is where we begin to hear the guys make important decisions together. They’re really good. When they begin, they’re not agreeing but as time goes by…. well, why don’t I let them tell you how they finally got to Sanremo….
The Song
Gianluca:I did not agree to go with that piece. If I think about it now, I’ll say that the next time I must reflect better before judging, try to sing a song and then judge because our voices change the songs. We arrange them by cutting them on our voice, and I did not take this fact into consideration. The song when we first listened to it was not very ugly!
Ignazio:It’s not that we’ve heard only that, no. Do you think it is easy to choose a piece for Sanremo? We started to do a search and a selection of unpublished tracks. Our policy was: either we go with something strong, or we do not go, right?
One day this song comes to us through Michele: Grande Amore by Francesco Boccia and Ciro Esposito, two Neapolitan authors. As usual, I am pessimistic. I listen to it, and it does not make me crazy. Not even Gianluca was convinced. The only enthusiast was Pie …
Piero (interrupts):I loved ‘Grande Amore!’ I did not believe that we would have won, but I was the one who pushed, I and Michele pushed for ‘Grande Amore’ because the audition that we heard was not beautiful, but we imagined it if it was made by Celso Valli and, I must say that we had guessed right.
Ignazio (interrupts):And I said it too if you let me talk. I was saying, in fact, that ‘Grande Amore’ was not as we hear it today. It was always called ‘Grande Amore,’ but it was totally different. So, we start to think: who can produce the piece? And Michele calls the great Celso Valli. After several weeks of work in the studio, we manage to churn out a song that could leave its mark at the Sanremo Festival.
Gianluca (interrupts): That’s why when we left for Sanremo I was very convinced we had the piece, the right project.
Piero:He wanted to influence us, but we are superstitious ….
Gianluca:Every day at lunch and dinner with Michele and the president of Sony, I say: ‘Guys, we will win Sanremo.’
Piero (interrupts):Do you know what a week like this means?
Ignazio:Piero and I were all day touching iron and the low parts. Gianluca was convinced that the little lion would be ours? And the two of us tried to keep the situation under control.
Gianluca (interrupts):What should I tell you? I am an optimist. They took it something like ‘he makes fun of us,’ but I felt it inside. I do not know why.
So many interruptions! Ignazio, before he was interrupted, was about to tell us about the first night they sang.
Ignazio:The 65th edition of the Festival begins on Tuesday, February 10th. We sing the second night, Wednesday the 11th. The strange thing is that normally my legs tremble before the performance, but mine trembled even after the performance! Perhaps too much adrenaline, it never happened before.
Piero (interrupts):Or maybe it was because we came back to the Ariston stage after going around the world. It was like coming home, because we experienced the beginning of our career here with Ti Lascio una Canzone. One thing that cannot be described: in Sanremo, in Italy, to sing and receive the applause of the Italian public. It cannot be explained.
The Wardrobe
Gianluca:Can you imagine for me this was also my birthday? I turned twenty on the Ariston stage! Of course, I was moved in the end, and it was too much emotion to my sensibility to play bad jokes at times. And then, we felt the pressure in the air. Even though I was optimistic, the tension was there.
Although we had taken care of the smallest details of the song, we had tried and tried again, and we had taken care of even the smallest details of the clothing. First evening look more rock: total black with leather jacket. Because when we do our work the image matters, too.
I really wanted to use the video of “Ancora” at Sanremo but I couldn’t get it to work so, instead I chose the one from Verona. Amazing no matter where they sing it!
Piero (interrupts):Count, of course that counts. But do you remember how we were dressed before? I remember that time at Una Notte per Caruso, in July 2009, it was the second time we saw Torpedine. Michele arrives with another white Range Rover, not that of Jesolo, and as soon as he arrives, we do not even say hello and we go to see the car. Let’s run, let’s open the car. Ignazio immediately goes up to the car. We went crazy for cars, one like that, we did not see every day. The day after we go for a ride in downtown Sorrento, a shopping trip, and we enter Gucci’s. Michele spent almost two thousand euros and we with that written number at the counter, we exclaimed: “Mizziga! (Damn!) Two thousand euro” with wide eyes. And we still have those clothes, at least I personally still have them.
He had bought us a jacket, but above all the need for us to dress all in white and blue. I had the blue jacket and the white shirt, Gianluca had blue trousers and white shirt, Ignazio the blue shoes and everything else white, Michele the blue jacket. And we took a picture in front of the hotel.
Gianluca (interrupts):We were just dressed badly to be singers by trade, we were children, we came from families of workers. What could I buy? There was not even the need.
Piero (interrupts):And then you remember the restaurant? Afterwards we went to a restaurant near the sea. When we finished eating, the three of us took off our shoes and ran to the beach. Michele ran behind us telling us: ‘Guys, calm down. Guys, slow down.’
At this point Ignazio loses his patience.
Ignazio: YES, but what does that have to do with it, Pie? We were talking about Sanremo. What has Sorrento got to do with it?
The Performance
Ignazio gets the conversation back on track!
Sanremo 2015, from the 10th to 14th of February, we sang on the second evening, legs shaking, Gianluca’s birthday.
(This video has English subtitles.)
Among the many interviews, the diary that we kept every day for TV Sorrisi e Canzoni … We had fun with the diary!
It was a sort of ‘pill.’ A very few minutes, in which we recorded from the 9th to 14th of February. We talked about some of the emotions we felt. For example, the time that Gianluca almost stumbles on stage or the happiness of seeing the audience get up and applaud the first night we sang ‘Grande Amore.’ The recording, then, went online on the site of the magazine.
What was I saying? Ah, yes, among the many interviews, the diary that we kept every day for TV Sorrisi e Canzoni, meetings and press conferences …
Piero (interrupts):And the criticisms we felt in those days? People at home voted for us, appreciated us, and journalists gave us votes that we thought were postponed until September, I also said this at the press conference after the victory. Five that flew (bad votes given by critics). But we see that the criticisms have done us good.
Ignazio:Can I do a criticism of you?
Piero:Ah, tell me…
Ignazio:You interrupted me. I was about to tell the final. I can continue?
The Win
Ignazio:In short, the final evening arrives, February 14th. I realize from my shirt that in a week we have eaten more than we sang. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I’m a boy who does not say cat if I do not have it in the bag, then until Carlo Conti said….
Piero (interrupts):And indeed, whoever wins does not know it until the end! Sorry, Igna’. Speak you!!!
Ignazio:Until Carlo Conti said: ‘The winner of the Sanremo Festival 2015 is … Il Volo!’ I said to the boys: ‘No, guys, we do not win, it’s difficult.’ And on the one hand I had Piero with shining eyes and on the other Gianluca with a smug smile as if to say: ‘Do not worry.’
Gianluca:The truth is that I was right from the beginning, and no one had ever listened to me, ever. I believed it so much that, if you notice, maybe I’m the one with the least surprised look on my face when Carlo Conti announces the winner. Then, of those moments, one remembers little, there is great confusion, emotion. It was a dream to be able to shout, ‘Thank you, Italy!’ from that stage. I look at Sanremo as a child, when there was Pippo Baudo, and I was there and have won because people were on our side and it was a dream, I repeat even if I have already said. The emotion was only when my grandfather told me almost in tears: “Who would have told me that in life I saw Modugno win at the Festival and then I saw you win?”
Taking the conversation back, I have to say, to me this was the best conversation we could listen to. They disagree, they find middle ground, and they agree but, most importantly they listen to one another and that’s what makes the bond so great!
In the end Gianluca said:In short, Sanremo was just a dream that brought us many different emotions.
This story was so important because the guys started on the Ariston stage as three teenagers, on Ti Lasc io Una Canzone, went around the world gaining success everywhere along the way, only to come back to the Ariston Theater to win not only Sanremo but the hearts of the Italian people; the one thing they wanted from the beginning!
Over those six years between Ti lascio Una Canzone and Sanremo, the guys sang in concerts hall around the world. Their songs went gold and platinum. They won many awards including the Latin American Music Award’s Latin Pop Albums Artist of the Year for a duo or group. They sang with people like Barbara Streisand and joined some of the best singers in the music industry for “We Are the World Haiti” but what they wanted more than anything was to be accepted in their own country and they did that by coming back to their beginnings! Going full circle and taking a big chance paid off on the Ariston Stage for the second time.
As the winners of Sanremo, the guys went on to Eurovision. They came in third. They saw it as a loss but, I saw it as a win because here the press came out for them awarding them the Marcel Bezencon Press Award. The press has spoken!
As Italy is a member of the Big Five, the guys went straight into the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest, which was held in Vienna on May 23rd, 2015. “Grande Amore” came in 3rd with 292 points but, they won the televote with 366 points and the Marcel Bezencon Press Award, as best song according to the collective voting of the accredited press.
And, the extended play “Sanremo Grande Amore” was released in Italy on February 20th, 2015, and it was certified triple platinum by FIMI.
When the guys won Sanremo 2015 they felt they had finally achieved their dream to be number one in the hearts of the Italian people!
Against all odds they pulled it off. The part of the story the guys missed was about the Italian people. They were always on their side. Even when they were traveling around the world and hoping to perform concerts in Italy, the Italian people were always waiting for them. The press was against them but never the people. They wanted them home as much as they wanted to go home.
How does Michele Torpedine sum up our guys….
These three guys have very clear ideas and I have never seen them impressed in front of audiences that many would shake their legs. I never heard a wrong attack, and if some inconsistency arose that made something happen professionally, they knew how to handle the problem at the origin. They are always extraordinary, their voices grow with them, they mature in body and soul. There is no other team or artistic team so complete.
I couldn’t have said it better myself!
So, we find the guys on February 14, 2015, Bringing the Lion Home.
Join me next week as I go back Through the Fields of My Mind and open the door to a new adventure!
For your listening pleasure – Il Volo Concert Verona 2015
If you would like to share a story with me, please e.mail: susan.flightcrew@yahoo.com
To read more Il Volo stories visit us at www.ilvoloflightcrw.com
This episode of Porta a Porta was supposed to air in February, but due to the war in Ukraine it has always been postponed.
Last week, with no ads and no announcements, it aired after midnight. Here is the episode and what has been said.
Please click on the photo below to view the video.
VESPA = We are approaching Eurovision, in Turin, the great music festival, and we are going there, remembering Il Volo, the boys of Il Volo, which we baptized here more than 10 years ago.
Let’s open this segment with the guys from Il Volo who will come here, in the studio, with us, and with this clip, Il Volo introduces itself.
(begins a video that traces many moments of Il Volo’s career. Immediately after, Il Volo, in the studio, sings “SE”).
Il Volo, celebrates more than 10 years of success at Porta a Porta. Piero Barone, 29 years old, Ignazio Boschetto, 28 years old, and the plague, Gianluca Ginoble, the worst of all, who runs away, cannot be found, is undisciplined, messy😁(he says it in a benevolent tone), but he is only 27 years old that we have to do??
GIANLUCA= I’m the youngest, by the way I just turned 27, just last week.
IGNAZIO= He is the smallest! (Maybe he also says it in a double sense, he also means height) 😁
PIERO = So, I’m the oldest at the table.
VESPA = Madonna, how old are you.
IGNAZIO = Can we sit down?
VESPA = Sure.
PIERO = Bruno, what did I tell you a little while ago?
VESPA + PIERO = The promises are kept. (They had promised to return soon to Porta a Porta)
VESPA = Look, I know it takes a long time . We love you so much, you love us so much, we have brought each other luck ….
PIERO = This program brings good luck, you were the first to invite us and tell everything we were doing outside (means outside Italy).
IGNAZIO = I can say that your program and you were the first person and the first (Italian) program who believed in us, and never took us for granted. We always have Porta a Porta and you in our hearts.
VESPA = Thanks, thanks, thanks.
After two years of hiatus due to the pandemic, who would have said it would last that long, seven thousand people sent home to Los Angeles (he refers to the canceled concerts) and now, go home and then in June ….
PIERO = Exactly, we will start in May from Japan (they didn’t go, I remind you that this episode was recorded in February), in June there will be concerts in Italy, we start from the Arena di Verona, 3 and 4 and maybe … . (implies that there might have been another date) ….
IGNAZIO = Yes, because we have been postponing it for two years
PIERO = Two years, and it seems that we are finally leaving…
VESPA = How many concerts in Italy?
PIERO = In Italy, there will be more or less 15 concerts, I don’t know exactly it’s all in the planning phase.
VESPA = And then instead in autumn: United States …..
PIERO = Autumn: September US, South America will follow and we will return to Japan, then concerts in Europe, we have to recover two years of work.
VESPA = There are many people waiting for you.
Well, we first heard “SE”, taken from the movie “Nuovo Cinema Paradiso”, now we listen to “Ecstasy of Gold” beautiful music by Morricone …
IGNAZIO = Then we also have Clint Eastwood here in the studio (he jokes referring to Gianluca, applause)
GIANLUCA = You two are targeting me, I understand.
VESPA = You have to go straight (a way of saying to be good)
GIANLUCA = I’m going straight, I’m the most restless one, right?
VESPA = Let’s hear these guys (Ecstasy of gold video starts).
This splendid video was filmed in Sardinia, “Il Volo Sings Morricone”, released on November 5th and distributed all over the world. But now we have to go back nine years, you are celebrating 10 years.
IGNAZIO = Yes, we have been celebrating this for two years now (laughter).😁
GIANLUCA = The celebrations never stopped.
VESPA = But you were just out, remember, we took you that you were in swaddling clothes, very small.
GIANLUCA = We have always been a little kids, now almost men.
VESPA = You were kids on December 17, 2013.
PIERO = We were here.
VESPA = Here, at Porta a Porta, let’s see. (a video of Porta a Porta starts and the boys sing “Un Amore così Grande”)
You were really little, and you had already been to America, however, you came from America.
IGNAZIO = We came from America. I remember.
PIERO = What is 2017?
VESPA + IGNAZIO = 2013
VESPA = (Turning to Piero) You looked the youngest, you looked really small, small …
PIERO = I didn’t have a beard, that tuft, a little restyling was done.
GIANLUCA = Before, when we were a little younger, people liked us , because we were child prodigies, in short, who sang with a different voice than our peers, we dressed a little like “grown-ups”.
Today it’s the other way around, see? (touches his beardless face) Today one takes off his beard and wants to look younger.
IGNAZIO = You take off your beard because you want to look younger. 😁
PIERO = He must always speak in the plural.😁
GIANLUCA = As a child you want to look older, do you see how we were dressed? We were dressed in our thirties there.
VESPA = Can I tell you something? Only once in my life did I feel old … who knows why at 27, at your age (talk to Gianluca)
GIANLUCA = Is it true?
VESPA = You saw, we had the same feeling, and now you are rejuvenated.
GIANLUCA = You can see that at 27 we Abruzzo feel “old”.
VESPA = At 27 we hear it and then we don’t !!
PIERO = The crisis of the 27th year.
VESPA = Yes, the 27th year crisis. (laughter) 😁
So, you then moved on to the theme songs of the television novels.
PIERO = For this you have to talk to Ignazio.
VESPA = Ignazio !
IGNAZIO = But I’ve always had a passion for writing music, I was in Sicily, and I remember I was sitting on the veranda, and the melody came out. So I carried it on and Makari was born.
VESPA = But during Covid?
IGNAZIO = Yes, it was that summer that seemed ….
VESPA = …. that things would return to normal?
IGNAZIO = Yes, like baby candy, right?😁
VESPA = Exactly.
IGNAZIO = And then I found myself writing this melody, and then, with Danilo Ciotti, our collaborator, we presented this song to the Palomar family, who are the producers of Makari, and so it all started.
VESPA = And it went well, let’s hear it. (begins the video of the song Makari)
And good Ignazio!
IGNAZIO = Thanks.
VESPA = Five million viewers!
IGNAZIO = Oh yes.
VESPA = It went really well. What did you three do during the two years of Covid?
(he turns to Gianluca) What have you done?
IGNAZIO = He took off his beard! 😁
GIANLUCA = But no! We decided not to live them passively, trying to stimulate creativity. I learned a little to play the piano, I accompanied me while I sang, it was my wish.
Then I studied acting a little. We reinvented ourselves, we thought of new projects. Morricone’s project was born thanks to two years of silence.
VESPA = (he turns to Ignazio) And what about you?
IGNAZIO= You think, I lost weight in the pandemic, and then I gained weight, when everything was sorted out (I think he meant that he had lost weight around the time of his father’s passing away).
I found love.❤ I studied a lot in the studio, and I improved.
VESPA = Did love distract you a lot?
IGNAZIO = Absolutely not!
VESPA = Did the love train you? Has it invigorated you?
It makes you dream, breathe ….
IGNAZIO = Love is beautiful when it makes you feel good, I’m fine. 😘
GIANLUCA = (to Vespa) You know it’s nice to see you in this role, I don’t see you asking about Meloni’s love (she is a political representative)(Gianluca means that: Porta a Porta is a program that deals with many topics, even political ones, often guests are politicians and they are not asked about their loves, of course) 😁
VESPA = You rather, you sentimentally, how are you doing?
GIANLUCA = I’m in love, I found love too last year, on the red carpet of the Venice Film Festival, think, what a story, like a fairy tale, do you realize? ❤
VESPA = Mamma mia! (and then turns to Piero)
IGNAZIO = Piero never talks (about the subject of love)
VESPA = I don’t want to invade privacy
PIERO = I like privacy, I prefer to live it for myself.
VESPA = …. live it for yourself, so is there a story? ….
PIERO = I mean my private life, for me my private life remains private ….
IGNAZIO = (he comes to his friend’s rescue by trying to change the subject) Morricone was a great project, we worked hard 😁😁😁
VESPA = Look at these (Ignazio and Gianluca) talking. What happened during Morricone?
IGNAZIO = Look, I’m perhaps the wrong person if you want to know something, I have a concrete stomach.
PIERO = About what?
IGNAZIO = On private lives, our gossips.
PIERO = In these two years we have had more time at our disposal, we have always had a hectic life, we have committed all our energies to Ennio Morricone’s project because you know, facing this world requires a lot of study, a lot of research and many thanks to the family of Ennio Morricone.
We have to thank his son, Andrea Morricone, also a great conductor, we had great support from him, he was like our compass, the world of Ennio Morricone is infinite and thanks to our producers and our team we have created Il Volo Sings Morricone, we also gave you vinyl for Christmas….
VESPA = Beautiful, beautiful, thank you!
PIERO = ….. we are delighted to have given voice to Morricone’s melodies, hoping that people are satisfied.
IGNAZIO = Can I add a little thing? At the beginning, perhaps we did not have a great knowledge of Ennio Morricone’s culture.
Once we thought about carrying on this thought, this idea, we immediately began to study, to understand who Morricone really was, because we had the opportunity to meet him in 2010, when we recorded our first album, and we had the opportunity to share the stage with him in 2011, but now we were more interested in understanding who he was and when we entered his world it was like taking a dip in a pool full of culture and emotions, full of feelings who always have something in store for you, it’s hard to explain!
VESPA = Now let’s see a video about who the three guys from Il Volo are all the way through. Come on.
IGNAZIO = Help! (part of a video with images of Il Volo a Porta a Porta)
In the video:
WOMAN’S VOICE = It’s been 10 years since Ignazio Boschetto, Piero Barone and Gianluca Ginoble came to visit us for the first time in Porta a Porta, at the dawn of their success.
Ten years in which Il Volo reached unimaginable heights, first, the enormous success in the US, with the invitation of Quincy Jones at the concert for Haiti, with stars of the caliber of Barbra Streisand, Bono and Lady Gaga, the transmission of Hellen De Generes and the lighting of the Christmas tree at the Rockefeller Center.
Then the consecration in Italy with the victory at the Sanremo Festival in 2015, a real triumph, so much so that Grande Amore, reaches 110 million views worldwide (now there are over 215 million views), and drags the trio to third place in the prestigious Eurovision Song Contest, where they are the most voted by the public.
That year we also accompanied them to New York, touching on their popularity, their kindness, their uncommon values, namely: bel canto, family, principles, sobriety, education and respect, especially among themselves, nothing that is taken for granted nowadays.
In the span of a decade they bring the Italian classics all over the world, modernizing them, without upsetting them, it is the boys in sneakers who sing Nessun Dorma and O Sole Mio, to use their words.
They also have the honor of singing in front of Pope Francis and over a million people in Panama on the occasion of World Youth Day.
Even during the health emergency, they continue to make all their fans feel the warmth, participating in the most important international streaming reviews, with a great sense of community and responsibility.
And now, as a sign of rebirth and hope, their world tour is about to start, 110 dates around the world, to celebrate their first 10 extraordinary years of career, an eagerly awaited reunion with the public, to continue to proudly bring Italy and its beauty around the world.
VESPA = We have taken the baton from Aunt Antonella, Antonella Clerici, (Ti Lascio Una Canzone).
GIANLUCA = We greet you with great affection.
VESPA = With great affection. But you, when did you get together?
IGNAZIO = We met on that TV show, (Ti Lascio Una Canzone), we didn’t know each other before ….
VESPA = Where did you go to sing separately ….
IGNAZIO = We met for the auditions in Rome, in via dei Gracchi.
VESPA = Via dei Gracchi, but each one had gone on his own.
IGNAZIO = Yes, yes! Then in Sanremo, which was where the broadcast took place, we met and in the fourth episode we sang together for the first time (25/04/2009).
PIERO = …. O Sole Mio.
IGNAZIO = … yes, O Sole Mio.
PIERO = Excuse me.
IGNAZIO = But calculate that Gianluca, we couldn’t see him.
VESPA = Was Gianluca terrible?
IGNAZIO = Do you know when you create small groups at school of the normal ones, the quiet ones and the cool ones? 😁
He was part of the cool, but it showed (applause and laughter), then in the end he came in our way, understood!
VESPA = He has converted.
IGNAZIO = And so it all started from there.
VESPA = (to Gianluca) But why are they talking about you like that?
IGNAZIO = Because we love him after all, at the bottom, at the bottom …..😘
GIANLUCA = ….. but at the very bottom 😁.
But that was our strength right from the start, did you understand? (to be united). Not only artistically, it was the first time that children sang O Sole Mio.
But then I like to see these videos and remember those moments, because Bel Canto allows you to perform in unique places, but above all to support yourself in projects like Morricone, like in Placido Domingo, like the Maestro Vittorio Storaro who accompanied us on this adventure. We have the honor, at our age, to join these names in cinema and music.
VESPA = Then I will ask you to sing a piece of O Sole Mio, sitting here, so a cappella …
IGNAZIO = If Barone says yes, that’s fine !! 😁
VESPA = Is he the boss?
IGNAZIO = Yes yes, (he jokes) see how he is placed with his arms folded …..
PIERO = I’m listening!
I link to what you were saying, seeing these old videos is really exciting, but on a daily basis it is difficult to find the stimulus and clearly find ideas on what to do. We sang in front of the Pope ….. and now what do we do? And I must tell you that it is a team effort, especially with our manager Torpedine, Mr. Torpedine, he is the mind of this group, and now a little while ago we were looking at the images of last Christmas, we sang three songs in St. Peter’s Square , this year we did it from the Frasassi Caves, a magical place.
VESPA = You will go to Bethlehem.
PIERO = And next year, we are working, by now we are at a good point … (he looks at Torpedine to have approval of the news he is saying)
IGNAZIO = We are checking in.
PIERO = We will sing in front of the grotto of the Nativity in Bethlehem and all this, we must say, also thanks to the support of the Undersecretary for Culture, for whom in November, we will sing in the world meeting of ministers of culture.
VESPA = Beautiful, very beautiful.
PIERO = Yes, I have to tell you that they are very beautiful things.
IGNAZIO = Can I say something? I want to reach out more to young people, to those who, like us, try to send their message. Nowadays it is very easy to arrive, with social networks, with the internet, it is very easy.
VESPA = The problem is to stay.
IGNAZIO = The problem is to stay, and in any case we always tell everything we have done, because we are very proud and grateful ….
PIERO = Do you have an itchy mustache?
IGNAZIO = No, it helps me to think. 😁
PIERO = Ah, ok !!
IGNAZIO = …… and we are very grateful for everything that has happened to us, but in recent years it has not been all roses and flowers, there are moments …..
VESPA = When was the most difficult moment?
IGNAZIO = There are moments in an artist’s career where difficulties come, in our case it was in 2014, when L’Universal did not …..
PIERO = Clearly there has been a change between one record company and another, and therefore there have been three or four months of “darkness”, but I remember that our manager was very good at hiding this from us, we didn’t live in that period of anxiety, he was: ”Yes, yes, don’t worry, everything is fine, tomorrow I have a meeting”. Instead there was nothing.
IGNAZIO = This is to make it clear that yes, today it is very easy to get there, but maintaining oneself, building oneself, sacrifices, is all very important …
VESPA = When you were little I used to tell you: “Guys down to earth”.
IGNAZIO = Absolutely ….
VESPA = Never mount your head, NEVER, when you think you are something more, already what you are is already a lot, always fly low low ….. (Vespa is referring to not being full of oneself)
IGNAZIO = I wanted to say it here.
VESPA = I don’t remember, what happened in Sanremo in 2015!
IGNAZIO = What happened?
VESPA = Bho! Let’s see for a moment! (the video of Grande Amore in Sanremo starts). (At some point the video loses audio due to a problem raised by the composer).
VESPA = (He turns to Ignazio). Now you do it again (the final note and Ignazio does it)
(Ring the bell, enter Vittorio Storaro on the show.)
VESPA = We have to greet a great person: Vittorio Storaro. Vittorio, it’s a great pleasure to have you here, thank you. Three Oscars, please take a seat. You can take off the mask.
STORARO = Now it can be done, respecting the distances, the rules and the possibility of being careful, not only with the vaccine, but also with the distances and the embrace of well-vaccinated friends.
IGNAZIO = But that’s why I’m away from Gianluca, for nothing else. 😁 (he jokes)
GIANLUCA = He (Ignazio) is angry with me, he is angry with me master …
STORARO = He (Gianluca) has a great energy, it is the energy that we have that usually brings the affections too. But be careful not to lose it, with the distance.
IGNAZIO = In what sense?
GIANLUCA = You have to be careful.
IGNAZIO = No, no, I am like a magnet for him, we attract the two of us.
VESPA = Vittorio Storaro won three Oscars (photography award), 1980 for Frencis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, 1982 for Beatty’s Reds and Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor in 1988.
Beyond these awards, even we reporters who have approached the cameras a few times, looking at the light of Vittorio Storaro, already looking at it, we have learned something.
We learned what is beautiful and what is ugly, and what is beautiful, you did it. And this was truly a great lesson.
STORARO = All this comes from the great studies of Hippocrates who studied the elements of life, the natural elements that arrived on our body, on our organism.
We see light, not only with the eyes, but with the whole body, we are a sensitive plate. Light is visible energy and therefore it reaches us with a certain frequency, and the more it touches us, the more it excites us.
VESPA = So ….. what do you have to do with Vittorio Storaro? What have you done together?
PIERO = The moment before I met Storaro, I wasn’t sure whether to give him the you, the her, or the you or theirs, I wanted to give theirs (he means that he was in awe of respect for Storaro), but we have one thing in common, we were born on the same day, different year, the 24th of June ….
STORARO = We are Cancer (zodiac sign).
PIERO = Maestro Storaro, before being a great artist is a great person, he transmitted so much, so much wisdom, and so much art to us and we have to thank him because, you know, sharing his experience, his art, his being, with three boys of 27 or 28 years, it is not obvious, it does not happen every day.
VESPA = You have put together Morricone’s music, the images of Storaro, Oscar winner …
IGNAZIO = Yes, because we have been trying to collaborate with Maestro Storaro for years and we never managed to find a just cause, deep and sincere, with great significance and this year, that is last year, that moment has come, it has come that idea.
VESPA = So let’s see this clip, Il Volo in the Caves …..
STORARO = Can I explain first a moment? Is useful.
VESPA = You’re welcome.
STORARO = It is true what Ignazio says, I had two Don Abbondio (he means two people who wanted to do this project … Don Abbondio is the character of the Promessi Sposi, a novel by Manzoni). Michele Torpedine called me, wrote to me every now and then to invite me to their concerts, he said, at least you know each other, it would be nice to make a video together.
While they were in Verona, I was in New York with Woody Allen, they went to New York, and I was always with Woody Allen in Spain or so on.
Then there was Maurizio Tosoroni who is the person in charge of the Frasassi Caves who asked me and Francesca (daughter of Storaro) who you know well, if we could conceive with modern technologies, and with a different creativity, that beautiful lighting they have the Frasassi Caves, which in this period of Covid were totally dark, totally closed and told me: “Why don’t we think about a project?”
The two Don Abbondio got together, they called me and I began to rehearse with lights, which we created together with Francesca related to the arts, because there was a phrase that struck me from our minister of culture, Dario Franceschini, that it is right to follow all the scientific warnings, medicines, vaccines, distances, masks, but if we add the energy, the creativity of the arts, maybe we can help so that everything can come back to life in a certain way.
VESPA = Of course, music and art give us hope, they help us to find the light.
STORARO = Do you understand? Also because we conceived the lights with Francesca, also linked to the muses, that is to the arts, and then I thought: “What can I do, with the trio Il Volo, inside the Frasassi Caves” and reminding me that they had told me that it was the fiftieth anniversary of the year in which three young speleologists descending from a hole with a rope, had discovered this incredible archaeological site among the best in the world, with the three of them (Il Volo) we reconstruct, not in a realistic way, but in a symbolic way, because they cannot go down with the suit and then sing, but in a tuxedo, and therefore in a symbolic way we have reconstructed the descent of the three , one at a time, first Gianluca, then Piero, then Ignazio, and little by little one descends, the light begins to rise …
VESPA = How wonderful! Let’s see it.
STORARO = Wait, I say one last thing. Only when Gianluca begins to sing, then Piero and then Ignazio, are together, they are like a seed that fertilizes mother earth and regenerates, and the trio becomes another trio, two trios, ten trios, one hundred trios, one thousand trios, none , one hundred thousand by Pirandello (Italian author). This was the creative energy of Il Volo.
VESPA = Well, let’s see it now. (The full video made in the Frasassi Caves begins.)
How wonderful!! Really what a treat !! Beautiful beautiful beautiful.
STORARO= Nothing is random. I have made 7 films with Ennio Morricone, and 10 films with Bernardo Bertolucci, and coincidentally this song comes from the film that the subject was written by Bernardo Bertolucci. I remember when I came here to say goodbye to Bernardo with you, and I told you about the possibility that I made him a promise, to restore and preserve all 10 films we made together, and I’m doing it now in the Cinecittà laboratory, with very modern technologies and with the possibility that these icons can last indefinitely.
VESPA = How wonderful! Bravo, bravo Vittorio, also for this.
GIANLUCA= I wanted to say that for us, our greatest goal is also to bring the beauties of our country. The Frasassi Caves, deserve to be, as they are already known all over the world, but even more so.
This was the perfect soundtrack, it was a wonderful experience in a magical place and living it with Maestro Storaro was even more so. It was truly an honor to be able to work together.
VESPA = Speaking of magical places, well, Santa Croce, in Florence (Notte Magica), but who would have thought it, direct by Placido Domingo.
PIERO = That was a great evening.
VESPA = Florence 2016 (The Magic Night video starts)
You didn’t have time to meet our friend Luciano Pavarotti.
IGNAZIO = Unfortunately not.
VESPA = In my opinion he would have put his hand on your shoulder, he was a person of absolute generosity who was really looking for, he was looking for new talents.
PIERO = This evening, the evening in Florence in Santa Croce, Tribute to the three Tenors, we had, in some way, the support from the three, because the maestro Placido Domingo directed the orchestra, but the Pavarotti foundation supported this idea because Nicoletta Mantovani (Pavarotti’s wife) gave the okay and said these very words: “The master would have liked this project”.
VESPA = Yes, absolutely yes.
VESPA = So, 2019, so these are the last things before Covid, at the Bolshoi Theater …
PIERO = To the Moscow Bolshoi
VESPA = La Traviata.
PIERO = Beautiful.
IGNAZIO = I was terribly ill, I had a fever that evening.
VESPA = Did you sing with a fever?
IGNAZIO = Yes, but I’m strong!
VESPA = Go, go. (The video of La Traviata starts)
So, (he turns to Piero) we went to New York together, we went to another big theater, the Metropolitan, do you remember?
PIERO = Yes.
VESPA = I don’t know if you remember, the room was empty, you and I were sitting next to you and I said to you: “But when you grow up, what do you want to do?” Was it your dream, does that still remain?
PIERO = Yes, in these two years, especially in the last 6 months I have studied a lot, I’m still studying, because you know very well how much study it takes. Just yesterday I did two and a half hours of lesson on Verdi, La Traviata.
VESPA = I have been to the Bolshoi with Riccardo Muti (well-known conductor), with the Friendship Concerts, and I assure you that if there is one who slaughters singers it was him.
PIERO = Mamma mia!
VESPA = Now it is no longer used, the masters have no desire or time, but before, a great singer always had his teacher who always kept him in the studio. You have to study a lot, every day.
IGNAZIO = I too, yesterday I did a two and a half hour session of the “tagliata (typical meat), I was very focused! (laughs) 😁😁😁
Sorry for the joke!
VESPA = He is always disheveled, undisciplined, the one who arrives late. Where is Gianluca!
GIANLUCA = This is what the two of them make you believe!
But it is nice that we are a group, but we continue to cultivate our passions, we respect and esteem each other, which is not obvious, as you know often groups are in competition …
VESPA = I know, you all never fight.!!
GIANLUCA = This is our great merit, because now 13 years together this is the beautiful thing.
Nice that Piero has his goals, for example, as I told you before, I am starting to approach the world of acting, trying to understand if one day, who knows, I would like to be an actor, but this enriches anyway, studying acting on stage , for a singer, it also helps you to express, to interpret songs better.
VESPA = So. (he turns to Piero) You say, we sang for the Pope, that’s enough, but no.
2019 Pope Francis, Panama (video of Panama starts)
In the video:
PIERO = His Holiness.
P + I + G = What a pleasure to see you again.
PIERO = This is our gift to you.
POPE = Thank you.
GIANLUCA = The dream and the desire to sing for him is coming true, we met in private audience last year and we sang for him an Ave Maria (Hail Mary) and here tonight we will sing it for him and for all the young people, we are truly honored.
POPE = Thank you.
PIERO = Can we take a picture?
POPE = Yes.
PIERO = A selfie like young people do. (The Pope gives a souvenir to Piero, Ignazio and Gianluca)
IGNAZIO = We are grateful to you. See you later.
GIANLUCA = As you know, the power of Italian and Neapolitan music has reached overseas, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, but also Elvis Presley himself …..
IGNAZIO = The Pope has just passed, sorry, the Pope comments, ….
PIERO = But what does Elvis Presley have to do with Pope Francis, can you explain to me?
GIANLUCA = Oh well, first let’s talk about the Pope and then we want to give you a small gift.
VESPA = A small gift?
GIANLUCA = Yes, yes, a little present.
VESPA = Wait, first now I want to ask you something, we want to dedicate to Vittorio Storaro, who represented Italian art in the world, one of the most popular songs in the world, like this, here a cappella. (O Sole mio)
GIANLUCA = This is why I said, the great Elvis Presley interpreted the song in English “It’s now or never”, do you remember that?
VESPA = Go !! (begins the a cappella song)
Well, we want to thank this magnificent group of romances, eight violinists, two cellists, thank you, thank you very much and congratulations, you are very good. And then (to Il Volo) I greet you now …
IGNAZIO = We leave you with a great masterpiece, you know the story of Sacco and Vanzetti well. We are truly honored to be able to tell it even to an audience that does not know this story, to an audience that is not Italian and perhaps has not known the injustices that can exist in life. We are very proud to sing this song.
GIANLUCA = We would like to thank you again, we also thank the Maestro Storaro.
VESPA = Thank you. (then he turns to Storaro) And what about you, beyond the restoration of Bertolucci’s films?
STORARO = Basically we’re still in the early stages, Woody sent me his fifth script to start, we had to do it first in New York, then we moved to France, now he’s looking to another country, Covid follows, depending on where it’s possible we’re going to do it.
VESPA = Good luck !!
PIERO = We would like to thank our audience for their love, support and support received over the years, thank you.
VESPA = And then: Sacco and Vanzetti! (start the song)
Really a nice chat between friends. You have noticed the masks and spacers, much more rigid in February than they are now.
Although it was not advertised, but was announced only by the tam-tam of the fans pages (incredible), this episode had very high ratings.
Congratulations as always, to Il Volo !!
But that of Porta a Porta was not the only appointment of Il Volo in this period, they were also in promotion Austria, on the TV show “Garden Party of the stars”.
Here they are.
Please click on the photo below to view the video.
Very nice this video shot in Austria in front of the beautiful Grillenstein castle.
And then, live, during the show, they sang Ecstasy of Gold.
Please click on the photo below to view the video.
Really a nice participation, let’s enjoy some pictures.
Then there was the announcement of the two Australian concert dates, finally !!
Reposted from @ilvolomusic :
Hello everyone, We are very happy to announce that ticket sales are now open for our Australian concerts in Melbourne (October 18) and Sydney (October 24).
And finally, on May 12, I remind you that Il Volo is taking part in the Eurovision Song Contest.
For those who cannot follow them on TV, I propose you to follow them on you tube on the official ESC channel: @eurovisionsongcontest.
Il Volo will sing GRANDE AMORE, but in a new version, which has just been heard.
The title is YOU ARE MY EVERYTHING and is in the English-Italian version and I find it beautiful !!
Here it is. ❤
What a thrill everything is ready, see you soon !!
Daniela
BREAKING NEWS!
Unfortunately, the news recently came that Gianluca is positive for Covid, so he will not be on the Eurovision stage. His voice will be recorded, only Ignazio and Gianluca will perform !!
I am very sorry for Gianluca, unfortunately you can never let your guard down with this Covid. Ignazio and Piero will do their best to represent Il Volo !!
For a long time I had hoped for this good news, this year the EUROVISION SONG CONTEST will take place here in Italy, exactly in Turin, on 10, 12 and 14 May and Il Volo will be a guest on the evening of 12 May !!!!
It is wonderful news, not only for the great media exposure that this singing competition has throughout Europe and beyond, but it is also a prize to the skill and professionalism of Piero, Ignazio and Gianluca. It is also a great gift for all fans and all the people who knew and loved them during EUROVISION 2015.
The good news was given personally by Piero, Gianluca and Ignazio, during the evening news of RAI 1 on 27 April.
Here is the video and I will translate what was said.
WOMAN = Seven years ago, Il Volo triumphed at the Sanremo Festival with the song GRANDE AMORE, let’s listen to a piece again. (the song begins)
And good evening to IL Volo, here they are: Piero, Gianluca and Ignazio.
P + I + G = Hello, good evening, good evening everyone.
WOMAN = What a beautiful song.
PIERO = Thanks.
WOMAN = You won Sanremo, you sang it at Eurovision and now ???
PIERO = Tonight we are happy to announce here at TG1 that this year we will be guests at the Eurovision Song Contest. It will finally be held in Italy, after many years and we wish a great “good luck” to those who represent Italy: Mahmood and Blanco, it will be a great emotion for them.
WOMAN = It will be a very strong emotion, to listen to your song again, to be at Eurovision as winners (to televoting) and to come back even now.
GIANLUCA = For us it is obviously a great honor, it was a great emotion to be able to represent our country at Eurovision seven years ago, singing GRANDE AMORE in front of 200 million people, therefore certainly a great emotion that we will never forget, and therefore let’s say … (he turns to Ignazio)
WOMAN = Why are you looking at Ignazio?
IGNAZIO = Because the good fortune of three of us is that we help each other, in fact, I wanted to say that we will be at Eurovision exactly on May 12th.
PIERO = Exactly, on the evening of May 12th.
WOMAN = Listen, Ignazio, with you the somewhat philosophical closure, which makes sense.
PIERO = Right with him?
WOMAN = Right with him, I choose him, maybe it will be the mustache, the goatee that stimulates this question (Ignazio is pleased, and then he is serious).
Eurovision is a little bit the bridge of the music, the symbol of music that unites and that never like now, this bridge, this union, is needed.
IGNAZIO = Absolutely, in the edition where we participated, it was precisely EUROVISION BUILDING BRIDGES, which means “build bridges”, and not only cultural, but also in traditions, we were lucky enough to be able to share our culture, our tradition with so many countries of the world, thanks to EUROVISION and that is why we do our best wishes to Mahmood and Blanco, above all.
PIERO = We would like to remember that this year we will be back on tour, finally after these years and we can’t wait to get back on the stages.
WOMAN = You will sing your classics and the music of maestro Ennio Morricone, we are very happy. Thanks for joining us.
P + I + G = Thank you
WOMAN = That’s all, we stop here.
Immediately after the news followed the tam, tam on all the various fan pages, it is useless to describe the happiness that this good news has unleashed here.
This beautiful video by Ignazio, Gianluca and Piero was also published on the EUROVISION Facebook page.
Reading the copious comments below this video, and almost all of them non-Italians, made me remember once again how much Il Volo had been much admired and appreciated by all of Europe and beyond.
Let’s review their video from seven years ago.
Even today I shudder to review this video, and immediately afterwards comes the anger for not winning.
Most of the comments under the video on the Facebook page, even today they say they had to be the winners of 2015, really amazing !!!
We also remind you that the last two editions of the Eurovision Song Contest have been undersized due to the pandemic and therefore this is the first post-pandemic edition. In Turin it is all a flurry of preparations. Listen and see how beautiful this video recorded in Turin, where many bands perform the theme song of Eurovision, in rock version, beautiful !!
Guys, it was a huge surprise, we can’t wait to see you in this beautiful context: EUROVISION SONG CONTEST 2022.
Now we have arrived at the part of the story which is the main event ~ Ti Lascio una Canzone! I’m going to say a few words about it for all the new fans out there and then I am a going to skip to The Night the Lion Roared. Why? Because everyone who knows Il Volo knows their amazing story! But I will share a few important facts and some videos of that amazing night.
Their amazing 1,2,3 win, as important as it was, was not the most important part to this story. The the biggest win of all was ~ Il Volo!
Let’s begin with Episode Four…
It is the fourth episode of Ti Lascio Una Canzone and the boys are given the music for “O Sole Mio” but in three parts. They thought it was strange because until then they were singing alone or doing duets.
They walked out on the stage, sang “O Sole Mio” and it was like they had been performing together for years. Flawless!
But before the trio came together, there were some amazing performances….
Let’s talk about some of the people they performed with on the show. Really great names in the Italian music industry. Massimo Ranieri, Fausto Leali, Al Bano, Adamo, Piero Mazzoccheti.
What I witnessed in those performances were great performers who were in awe of these three teenage boys who were singing, in some cases, their songs and they were totally amazed. It was written all over their faces. They could not believe what they were hearing.
What was going on behind the scenes? Well, we certainly know that the idea to put the three together was the genius of Roberto Cenci the artistic director and director of the program. But there was so much more happening!
We know when Michele Torpedine heard them sing for the first time, he thought the three possessed an incredible vocality for their age.
He instinctively knew signing these kids would be for him the find of a lifetime!
Michele says, “The next day I am a volcano. I want to talk to everyone: producers, managers, families.”
Michele continues, “Another great story started, a new story at a time when it seemed to me that there was no future for me, for my profession: a breath of oxygen in my environment.”
After years of disappointment, loss of trust and gratitude, missing or denied, with Ignazio, Piero and Gianluca, Michele rediscovers the values of gratitude. Michele says, “The boys allowed me to really go back to my job.”
And the results….
They were the first Italian artists in history to sign a contract with a major American music label.
Universal Music signed them immediately. Michele said, “It is important to give due recognition to the man who made all this possible, the great record manager Peter Lopez. Peter immediately sensed the enormous potential of our artistic project. To him we owe an incredible international contract signed simply trusting that the boys would have audiences all over the world.”
But what did they bring to the table to win over the kids, the parents, and the grandparents? They had an idea and it worked….
Their music was Operatic pop or Pop-Opera. What was this new movement? It’s singing Opera in a more modern style. While opera is very strict and regimented, Pop-Opera is more ethereal it has a lighter feeling, and it moves freely. It takes away the hard edges of opera and replaces it with a more ethereal feel while still presenting the drama and the high notes of the opera. This along with the classical Neapolitan songs became a big draw. Why did it work? One reason is three amazing voices! If the voice wasn’t there, the song wasn’t going to sell.
They started their career in America and immediately went around the world! There was no stopping them. Everyone everywhere loved them and their music. There are some great memories along the way but that’s a story for another day….
So now I will flash forward six years and tell you about The Night the Lion Roared….
When I read Un’avventura Straordinaria, the story that I loved the most was the story of Sanremo. The decision by the guys to take on the Sanremo Festival. This story brought out their personalities, their differences and how they are so bound to one another that they could make the decision of a lifetime together even if it meant they could lose what was so important to them, their country and their people!
We know 2014 started out as a bad year, but suddenly things were happening. They were invited to sing at the Italian Senate. This was an event of immense importance for them. It said Italy was finally noticing them so, it only made sense that it was time to take a giant step!
But this story doesn’t start with Sanremo, nor does it end there! Sanremo was the door opener!
They will tell you that the decision to go to Sanremo was a good one but, in contrast going to Eurovision may not have been their best decision. My reply, going to Eurovision was an excellent decision!
Let’s see how these decisions were made and what path they chose….
Sanremo 2015
The Decision
So where do you begin to make the decision. Well, you have to start with….
Who’s in and who’s out!
Who’s in?
From day one, Gianluca wanted to go. He was so convinced that they would win that he never backed down from it. He had no doubt in his mind that they would win.
Who’s out?
Always the pessimist, Ignazio. He said “No, we can’t win. It’s too hard.”
So that leaves Piero! Piero at first was not on board but Gianluca persuaded him. Gianluca said, “No one trusted, no one believed it. It was I who persuaded Piero to persuade Ignazio to go to Sanremo. Because I told them: ‘Guys, if we go, we’ll win it, I’m sure, I’m sure’”.
Piero said, “We said to ourselves: ‘Guys, make it or break it, in the end, we were not anyone here in Italy, at most we would not be anyone even afterwards.’”
Decision made! It’s official the guys go to Sanremo!
Then there’s the second problem, the song!
At Sanremo you must perform an unpublished song. How do you begin to find such a song?
Now this is the part of the story that’s really interesting and sometimes funny! Oddly enough, the one who wanted this the most was the one who did not agree to the song. I so enjoyed listening to this dialogue between the guys. This is where we begin to hear the guys make important decisions together. They’re really good. When they begin, they’re not agreeing but as time goes by…. well, why don’t I let them tell you how they finally got to Sanremo….
The Song
Gianluca:I did not agree to go with that piece. If I think about it now, I’ll say that the next time I must reflect better before judging, try to sing a song and then judge because our voices change the songs. We arrange them by cutting them on our voice, and I did not take this fact into consideration. The song when we first listened to it was not very ugly!
Ignazio:It’s not that we’ve heard only that, no. Do you think it is easy to choose a piece for Sanremo? We started to do a search and a selection of unpublished tracks. Our policy was: either we go with something strong, or we do not go, right?
One day this song comes to us through Michele: Grande Amore by Francesco Boccia and Ciro Esposito, two Neapolitan authors. As usual, I am pessimistic. I listen to it and it does not make me crazy. Not even Gianluca was convinced. The only enthusiast was Pie …
Piero (interrupts):I loved ‘Grande Amore!’ I did not believe that we would have won, but I was the one who pushed, I and Michele pushed for ‘Grande Amore’ because the audition that we heard was not beautiful, but we imagined it if it was made by Celso Valli and, I must say that we had guessed right.
Ignazio (interrupts): And I said it too if you let me talk. I was saying, in fact, that ‘Grande Amore’ was not as we hear it today. It was always called ‘Grande Amore,’ but it was totally different. So, we start to think: who can produce the piece? And Michele calls the great Celso Valli. After several weeks of work in the studio, we manage to churn out a song that could leave its mark at the Sanremo Festival.
Gianluca (interrupts): That’s why when we left for Sanremo I was very convinced we had the piece, the right project.
Piero:He wanted to influence us, but we are superstitious ….
Gianluca:Every day at lunch and dinner with Michele and the president of Sony, I say: ‘Guys, we will win Sanremo.’
Piero (interrupts):Do you know what a week like this means?
Ignazio:Piero and I were all day touching iron and the low parts. Gianluca was convinced that the little lion (the Sanremo award is represented by a lion) would be ours? And the two of us tried to keep the situation under control.
Gianluca (interrupts):What should I tell you? I am an optimist. They took it something like ‘he makes fun of us,’ but I felt it inside. I do not know why.
So many interruptions! Ignazio, before he was interrupted, was about to tell us about the first night they sang.
Ignazio:The 65th edition of the Festival begins on Tuesday, February 10th. We sing the second night, Wednesday the 11th. The strange thing is that normally my legs tremble before the performance, but mine trembled even after the performance! Perhaps too much adrenaline, it never happened before.
Piero (interrupts):Or maybe it was because we came back to the Ariston stage after going around the world. It was like coming home, because we experienced the beginning of our career here with Ti Lascio una Canzone. One thing that cannot be described: in Sanremo, in Italy, to sing and receive the applause of the Italian public. It cannot be explained.
The Wardrobe
Gianluca:Can you imagine for me this was also my birthday? I turned twenty on the Ariston stage! Of course, I was moved in the end, and it was too much emotion to my sensibility to play bad jokes at times. And then, we felt the pressure in the air. Even though I was optimistic, the tension was there.
Although we had taken care of the smallest details of the song, we had tried and tried again, and we had taken care of even the smallest details of the clothing. First evening look more rock: total black with leather jacket. Because when we do our work the image matters, too.
I really wanted to use the video of “Ancora” at Sanremo but I couldn’t get it to work so, instead I chose the one from Verona. Amazing no matter where they sing it!
Piero (interrupts):Count, of course that counts. But do you remember how we were dressed before? I remember that time at Una Notte per Caruso, in July 2009, it was the second time we saw Torpedine. Michele arrives with another white Range Rover, not that of Jesolo, and as soon as he arrives, we do not even say hello and we go to see the car. Let’s run, let’s open the car. Ignazio immediately goes up to the car. We went crazy for cars, one like that, we did not see every day. The day after we go for a ride in downtown Sorrento, a shopping trip, and we enter Gucci’s. Michele spent almost two thousand euros and we with that written number at the counter, we exclaimed: “Mizziga! (Damn!) Two thousand euro” with wide eyes. And we still have those clothes, at least I personally still have them.
He had bought us a jacket, but above all the need for us to dress all in white and blue. I had the blue jacket and the white shirt, Gianluca had blue trousers and white shirt, Ignazio the blue shoes and everything else white, Michele the blue jacket. And we took a picture in front of the hotel.
Gianluca (interrupts):We were just dressed badly to be singers by trade, we were children, we came from families of workers. What could I buy? There was not even the need.
Piero (interrupts):And then you remember the restaurant? Afterwards we went to a restaurant near the sea. When we finished eating, the three of us took off our shoes and ran to the beach. Michele ran behind us telling us: ‘Guys, calm down. Guys, slow down.’
At this point Ignazio loses his patience. YES, but, what does that have to do with it, Pie? We were talking about Sanremo. What has Sorrento got to do with it?
The Performance
Ignazio gets the conversation back on track!
Sanremo 2015, from the 10th to 14th of February, we sang on the second evening, legs shaking, Gianluca’s birthday.
This video has English subtitles
Among the many interviews, the diary that we kept every day for TV Sorrisi e Canzoni … We had fun with the diary!
It was a sort of ‘pill.’ A very few minutes, in which we recorded from the 9th to 14th of February. We talked about some of the emotions we felt. For example, the time that Gianluca almost stumbles on stage or the happiness of seeing the audience get up and applaud the first night we sang ‘Grande Amore.’ The recording, then, went online on the site of the magazine.
What was I saying? Ah, yes, among the many interviews, the diary that we kept every day for TV Sorrisi e Canzoni, meetings and press conferences …
Piero (interrupts):And the criticisms we felt in those days? People at home voted for us, appreciated us, and journalists gave us votes that we thought were postponed until September, I also said this at the press conference after the victory. Five that flew (bad votes given by critics). But we see that the criticisms have done us good.
Ignazio:Can I do a criticism of you?
Piero:Ah, tell me…
Ignazio:You interrupted me. I was about to tell the final. I can continue?
The Win
Ignazio:In short, the final evening arrives, February 14th. I realize from my shirt that in a week we have eaten more than we sang. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I’m a boy who does not say cat if I do not have it in the bag, then until Carlo Conti said….
Piero (interrupts):And indeed, whoever wins does not know it until the end! Sorry, Igna’. Speak you!!!
Ignazio:Until Carlo Conti said: ‘The winner of the Sanremo Festival 2015 is … Il Volo!’ I said to the boys: ‘No, guys, we do not win, it’s difficult.’ And on the one hand I had Piero with shining eyes and on the other Gianluca with a smug smile as if to say: ‘Do not worry.’
Gianluca:The truth is that I was right from the beginning, and no one had ever listened to me, ever. I believed it so much that, if you notice, maybe I’m the one with the least surprised look on my face when Carlo Conti announces the winner. Then, of those moments, one remembers little, there is great confusion, emotion. It was a dream to be able to shout, ‘Thank you, Italy!’ from that stage. I look at Sanremo as a child, when there was Pippo Baudo, and I was there and have won because people were on our side and it was a dream, I repeat even if I have already said. The emotion was only when my grandfather told me almost in tears: “Who would have told me that in life I saw Modugno win at the Festival and then I saw you win?”
Taking the conversation back, I have to say, to me this was the best conversation we could listen to. They disagree, they find middle ground, and they agree but, most importantly they listen to one another and that’s what makes the bond so great!
In the end Gianluca said: In short, Sanremo was just a dream that brought us many different emotions.
You might ask why did I put these two stories together? I wanted you to see what six years in their lives did for them. They started on the Ariston stage as three teenagers, went around the world gaining success everywhere along the way, only to come back to the Ariston Theater to win not only Sanremo but the hearts of the Italian people; the one thing they wanted from the beginning!
Over those six years they sang in concerts hall around the world. Their songs went gold and platinum. They won many awards including the Latin American Music Award’s Latin Pop Albums Artist of the Year for a duo or group. They sang with people like Barbara Streisand and joined some of the best singers in the music industry for “We Are the Whole Haiti” but what they wanted more than anything was to be accepted in their own country and they did that by coming back to their beginnings! Going full circle and taking a big chance paid off on the Ariston Stage for the second time.
As the winners of Sanremo, the guys went on to Eurovision. They came in third. They saw it as a loss but, I saw it as a win because here the press came out for them awarding them the Marcel Bezencon Press Award. The press has spoken!
As Italy is a member of the Big Five, the guys went straight into the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest, which was held in Vienna on May 23rd, 2015. “Grande Amore” came in 3rd with 292 points but, they won the televote with 366 points and the Marcel Bezencon Press Award, as best song according to the collective voting of the accredited press.
And, the extended play “Sanremo Grande Amore” was released in Italy on February 20th, 2015, and it was certified triple platinum by FIMI.
The Night the Lion Roared, the guys felt they had finally achieved their dream to be number one in the hearts of the Italian people!
Against all odds they pulled it off. The part of the story they missed was about the Italian people. They were always on their side. Even when they were traveling around the world and hoping to perform concerts in Italy, the Italian people were always waiting for them. The press was against them but never the people. They wanted them home as much as they wanted to go home.
How does Michele Torpedine sum up our guys….
These three guys have very clear ideas and I have never seen them impressed in front of audiences that many would shake their legs. I never heard a wrong attack, and if some inconsistency arose that made something happen professionally, they knew how to handle the problem at the origin. They are always extraordinary, their voices grow with them, they mature in body and soul. There is no other team or artistic team so complete.
I couldn’t have said it better myself!
Join me next week as I go back Through the Fields of My Mind and open the door to a new adventure!
At the end of November 2021, this beautiful article by Donatella Aragozzini was published in the GRAND HOTEL newspaper.
The article is about the “new girls” of our young men. I have waited so far to publish it, because GRAND HOTEL is clearly a gossip newspaper, and then there were many live events to follow, but above all because I did not want to start useless gossip, since the two stories were very recent.
This interview draws many ideas from the VERISSIMO television show, in reality I believe that the whole article was written, just drawing the sentences, from that broadcast.
This is the cover of the GRAND HOTEL newspaper, as you can see Il Volo is on the cover, I translate the words written in the middle, Gianluca and Ignazio de Il Volo announce: “We have found great love”, and Piero says: “I’m working on it.”
And here is the whole translation of the entire article.
Young, beautiful and talented, with a success that knows no bounds.
And now also with a heart full of love.
Far away, are the times of “Ti lascio una canzone”, where Gianluca Ginoble, Piero Barone, and Ignazio Boschetto made their debut little more than children, before becoming famous all over the world with the name Il Volo.
Today, the three “tenorini”, launched by Antonella Clerici’s program, are almost thirty-year-old men, who are beginning to look to a future made not only of music, and to dream of the “Grande Amore”, to quote the song with which triumphed at the Sanremo Festival in 2015.
Gianluca Ginoble is sure to have found her, who, what has never happened so far, made a relationship official, talking about it openly.
Always jealous of his privacy and reluctant to talk about his feelings, this time the singer from Abruzzo said it without fear: “I’m engaged and really in love. I can say it publicly: I’m happy.”
He, who “is engaged intermittently, on leasing, because he changes every two years”, as Boschetto teases him, is now very convinced of his choice, ready to bet that “in two years the girl will be the same”.
The lucky one who stole his heart is called Eleonora, like his mother, but it is her surname that tells a lot about her: Venturini Storaro, where Storaro immediately brings to mind grandfather Vittorio, one of the greatest directors of photography in world cinema, three times Oscar winner (for “Apocalypse Now”, “Reds” and “The Last Emperor”).
They have been together, “for a while”, explains Gianluca, and guilty, therefore, could have been in August, the shooting of the short film shot in the Frasassi Caves, in which the three tenors paid tribute to Ennio Morricone, singing one of his compositions most famous, “Your Love” (from the film Once upon a time in the west): on that occasion, behind the camera, there was the great “cinematographer”, as Storaro likes to call himself, flanked by his daughter Francesca, who as an architect took care of the lighting, and of her daughter Eleonora.
The words written in yellow say: “Ginoble loves Eleonora, the granddaughter of a three-time Oscar winner.”
On the photo, the words written in white say: “Here is the shot that Gianluca Ginoble chose to present his girlfriend: her name is Eleonora Venturini Storaro, and she is the granddaughter of Vittorio Storaro (with her in the box), the director of photography, winner of three Oscars, including the one for The Last Emperor. “
Tall, with a cascade of black hair and deep dark eyes, the young Roman also enchanted the audience of the Venice Film Festival, where she walked the red carpet, together with her grandfather and the trio, to present a preview of the short film, in a blue dress that highlighted her long model legs.
Yes, because although she graduated with full marks in Fashion and Costume Sciences at the Sapienza University of Rome, then specializing in Fashion Design at the Marangoni Institute in Milan, Eleonora also works as a model. However, it is difficult to think that beauty is the only “weapon” unlined to conquer Ginoble.
Before her, the tenor, in fact, had several other girlfriends, real or alleged, from a certain Martina, who was close to him for a couple of years, to Francesca, a girl from his country, resembling Silvia Toffanin, from Mercedes Henger, to the Neapolitan actress Pasqualina Sanna, former competitor of “La pupa e il secchione”. (honestly Mercedes Henger and Pasqualina Sanna have never been engaged to Gianluca)
Yet, on none of them he has ever expressed himself, keeping every story to himself, while this time he wanted to share his happiness with the fans, publishing a shot with his new partner with the caption:
“And then I met you ……”, to underline how she has that something extra that makes her special in his eyes.
“Without taking anything away from the others, Eleonora is a very good girl”, Boschetto confirmed, “We are really happy that she is part of this family, because we are a big family.”
And the “family” now also includes Ana Paula Guedes, the splendid Brazilian professional from the “Dança dos Famosos” program (the carioca version of our “Dancing with the stars”), who last year literally made Ignazio lose his head. Suffice it to say that, to hold her in his arms, the Sicilian did not hesitate to face a journey of nine thousand kilometers, over twelve hours by plane.
“I’m in a moment of my life where I feel great,” he says, with an ecstatic expression on his face. “She is beautiful, but above all she is very beautiful inside, a beautiful person.”
On the photo, the words in yellow say: “Boschetto is crazy about Ana Paula, a Brazilian dancer.”
The black words say: “The woman who won Ignazio’s heart is blonde: her name is Ana Paula Guedes and she is a Brazilian dancing with the stars teacher. We met during the pandemic, he says.”
“We met during the pandemic: it was strange because we spent eight months exchanging messages, hearing and video calling each other, then, at the first opportunity, I went to Brazil to meet her, and from there, we got to know each other, slowly slowly . We don’t know each other one hundred percent yet, but we are very much in love.”
So much to think about tomorrow: if she replied to a fan that the wedding “one day it will happen and it will be very beautiful”, he confesses that he would not mind becoming a dad because “I always liked the idea of being a young father, I’m meeting the right person now, who knows …..”
And Piero Barone? His last official story dates back to three years ago, when he was paired with Valentina Allegri, the daughter of Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri.
But after their goodbye, he has not met anyone capable of making his heart beat in the same way.
“Love is such a strong feeling that it must be protected, many have been lucky enough to find a soul mate, I still don’t, but I know it’s out there somewhere”, he says, specifying that “feeling good and happiness is not the same thing, for now I’m fine, and I’m happy with this.”
However, it does not mean that Piero does not want to find that happiness, and to build something important with a woman, since he admits: “I see a future with a family, with children, I believe it is the real reason for living”.
In short, for the moment he is single, but also ready to welcome him with open arms, when arrives, the ……. Great Love.
The words in the red box say: “After having conquered the world singing love, the time has come for Gianluca and Ignazio to live it.
– I am still looking for it- says Piero, – but I know it is somewhere .“
As I have already said, at the beginning I did not want to start a lot of gossip, so I kept this article “in the drawer” and I waited for things to be made clearer by Gianluca and Ignazio.
In fact, Gianluca started posting photos with Eleonora, she followed him for the Il Volo event in Dubai, here are their beautiful photos.
Ignazio had to wait for the Christmas holidays to reach his beloved.
But, as you can see from these photos, Ignazio did not only go to Brazil, he brought with him the other two women of his life, his mother and his sister, thus confirming that his is not a simple momentary falling in love, but it is much more.
The man you see here with Ignazio and Ana Paula, posted the photo with these words of his comment: “What a joy to celebrate the penultimate day of the year with the people we love so much! Thank you @ignazioboschetto and @aniinhaguedes for the welcome and affection of friendship! May the Lord Jesus always bless and strengthen your lives! Your love is so beautiful that it oozes and touches us all! United always !!!
Yes, don’t you get sidetracked by his clothing, this man is a priest.
But the most beautiful photos are certainly these two: how wonderful to see our two young men so happy !! ❤❤
The new year has begun and the photos of the two couples continue to arrive, Eleonora has also celebrated her birthday these days.
You will have noticed, in these last photos, that Gianluca and Ignazio have removed their beards.
Now they look like two kids and even Piero did the same and on himself too . . . the same effect !! 😮
At the end, what can I say, actually two beautiful girls, Eleonora and Ana Paula.
Gianluca and Ignazio confirmed that they are constant in the canons of their female choices: Gianluca’s girl is dark-haired with long, straight hair and Ignazio’s is blonde.
What we may not have expected was that both the women have roles that put them “in the spotlight”.
Eleonora is also a model and also an influencer. Ana Paula, with her work, is always on television.
When the photos of the two couples began to be published, many rude and absurd comments were written on many Facebook pages. To the Fandom, who may like or not like the two girls, I don’t think a rude attitude is right (in some cases I would dare to say absurd jealousy), even before knowing these two girls well.
For my part, seeing Ignazio so happy is priceless and Gianluca is no exception.
Let’s give time to time and enjoy their happiness.
Daniela
Credit to owners of all photos.
Come in and share the love of life, friends and Il Volo!
