The Sanremo Music Festival 1973 (), officially the 23rd Italian Song Festival (), was the 23rd annual Sanremo Music Festival, held at the Sanremo Casino in Sanremo between 8 and 10 March 1973. It was organised by the municipality of Sanremo and broadcast by (RAI). The first two nights were presented by Gabriella Farinon, who joined Mike Bongiorno in presenting the final. served as artistic director.
The winning song was "" written by Peppino di Capri, Franco Califano and Gianni Wright, and performed by di Capri himself.
It was the first edition to be produced in colour. In January 2017, RAI announced they were given a one-hour colour copy of the final from Czech broadcaster ČT, broadcast originally in Czechoslovakia by ČST in 1973. The following day, RAI uploaded the copy to their streaming service RaiPlay.
Format On 4 December 1972, the Sanremo city council passed a resolution to organise the 1973 edition of the festival directly, as they had done the previous year. Changes to the regulations, which included increasing the number of competing songs to thirty-two and removing the article allowing the song selection commission to ask artists for a second song that caused controversy the previous year, were approved by the council on 28 December. An executive committee formed of city councillors was in charge of organising the event and assigned the festival's artistic direction to .
A decision was made by the Sanremo city council to move the dates of the festival from the end of February to the second week of March, between 8 and 10 March 1973, as a way to extend the city's tourism season. The municipality chose to hold the event in its usual venue, the ballroom of the Sanremo Casino.
Voting system The vote in each show was conducted by a regional jury representing eleven Italian cities. To select the twenty jury members and ten reserve members for each jury, telephone operators called three hundred telephone numbers in each city selected at random by a computer. Jury members were gathered in the editorial office of a newspaper in their city and during the shows, rated each song from one to ten immediately after it was performed. In the event of a tie, a backup jury of spectators in the venue would cast a deciding vote.
Selections Una voce per Sanremo A preliminary competition titled ("A Voice for Sanremo") was held by the municipality of Sanremo between 20 and 22 December 1972 in the Sanremo Casino, with the purpose of determining two newcomer artists between the ages of 18 and 25 to participate in the festival's 1973 edition. After applications for the competition were advertised in the magazine TV Sorrisi e Canzoni and by , the municipality received 750 submissions, of which twenty-nine were selected to compete. The twenty-nine participating artists were as follows:
Amelia Tuccillo Amelia Violi Andrea Mulas Angela Maselli Antonio Jacono Antonio Sturaro Assunta Quercioli Cesidio Di Francescantonio Enrico Fratini Ernesto Esposito Franco Sidoti Gaetano Casella Gilda Giuliani Leonardo Morelli Lia De Felice Marcella Guttadaura Maria Catalano Maria Clara Salmaso Maria Rosa Carmi Marisa Bulgarini Pasquale Capobianco Riccardo Marini Romana Nicolò
Rosanna Magnarin Sabino Di Nicoli Silvana Rizza Sonia Dal Zen
Sixteen of the artists participated in the final night and the winners were Gilda Giuliani and . The municipality later invited both artists to submit a song for the festival, although with no guarantee they would be selected for the event as initially ensured. Nevertheless, both artists were chosen to compete.
Competing entries The municipality of Sanremo received 198 song submissions from artists proposed by record labels and invited by the municipality. They appointed a nineteen-member special commission tasked with selecting thirty-two submissions for the competition, composed of pop music critics, composers, government ministers, union representatives, members of the public as well as the actors Ernesto Calindri and Alighiero Noschese, and the sports commentator Nicolò Carosio. The song selection process was recorded via closed-circuit television and was able to viewed live by onlookers. The commission chose the thirty-two competing entries on 20 February, along with six reserve entries in case any of the chosen artists were unable to participate.
The list of competing artists was noted by press for including a smaller amount of Italian artists with substantial fame than in previous years. Among the artists rejected by the commission were Rita Pavone, Lucio Dalla, Nada, Al Bano, Little Tony and Don Backy.
On 6 March, the festival's organisers received a tongue-and-cheek telegram from Adriano Celentano, after he had failed to attend rehearsals earlier in the day, announcing his withdrawal from the competition with his song "" due to a "sudden attack of gastritis" preventing him from attending the event. In his telegram, Celentano claimed to have been ordered by a doctor to rest for five days, and that his recovery would not be until 11 March, a day after the final. He stated his illness could have stemmed from "when the selection committee rejected well-known figures of Italian song, without taking into account their prestigious contribution to Italian song in general and especially to the various previous editions of the Sanremo festival".
Shortly before the festival took place, Rosa Balistreri was accused of breaking the rules of the competition by having already performed her song "", which was grounds for her disqualification. The accusation was sent to the festival's executive committee via telegram on 5 March, claiming Balistreri had performed a 30-second Sicilian version of the song on 27 October 1972 during a television special dedicated to her. Balistreri denied the claim earlier in the week. The situation was brought to the attention of (RAI), who conducted an investigation and confirmed they had documentation of the performance. Following the confirmation, the municipality announced the song's disqualification on 7 March. Press reported that the telegram was sent by the singer Umberto Bindi, whose song was first in the reserve list, and had requested to take Balistreri's place in the competition. However, the municipality later stated reserve songs could not replace last-minute disqualifications.
+Competing entries Song Artist Songwriter(s) Votes "" Adriano Celentano 14 "" 12 "" 17 "" Anna Identici 12 "" 17 "" Detto Mariano 11 "" Christian De Sica 11 "" Donatello 14 "" Drupi 16 "" Fausto Leali 11 "" Gigliola Cinquetti Claudio Mattone 13 "" Gilda Giuliani 13 "" I Camaleonti 19 "" 18 "" 13 "" Lara Saint Paul 15 "" 16 "" 11 "" Lolita 14 "" Memo Remigi Memo Remigi 18 "" Milva 19 "" Mocedades 16 "" Peppino di Capri 16 "" Peppino Gagliardi 19 "Angeline" Pop-Tops 14 "" Ricchi e Poveri 19 "" Roberto Vecchioni Roberto Vecchioni 19 "" Rosa Balistreri Alberto Piazza 19 "Elisa Elisa" Sergio Endrigo 19 "" Toni Santagata Toni Santagata 13 "" Umberto Balsamo 16 "" Wess and Dori Ghezzi 16
+Reserve entries Song Artist Songwriter(s) "" Gilda "" Ivano Fossati Ivano Fossati "Made in Italy" Jimmy Fontana "Awamalaia" "" Oreste Vainiglia "" Umberto Bindi
Shows
The festival consisted of three shows held between 8 and 10 March 1973. The first two nights were broadcast only on radio and consisted of fifteen songs each. Eight songs qualified from each show, creating a final consisting of sixteen songs. The radio broadcasts for the first two nights were directed by , while the television director for the final was Enrico Moscatelli.
The final was presented by Mike Bongiorno, who was assisted by Gabriella Farinon. The first two nights were presented solely by Farinon due to Bongiorno's commitments with hosting the show . In each show, instrumental recaps of the competing songs were played by the orchestra conducted by the French composer Raymond Lefèvre.
A draw took place on 2 March at the Fonit Cetra studios in Milan, where first rehearsals for the festival were held, to determine the running order for the first two nights. Rosa Balistreri and Adriano Celentano were originally drawn to perform 13th and 15th respectively during the second night, with the date of Toni Santagata's performance switched from the first night to the second night to fill their absences.
First night The first night took place on 8 March 1973 at 21:00 CET. Fifteen artists performed their songs and eight were selected for the final.
+First night – 8 March 1973 Song Artist Points Place 1 "" Donatello 1,318 2 2 "" Roberto Vecchioni 1,128 8 3 "" Wess and Dori Ghezzi 1,202 6 4 "Elisa Elisa" Sergio Endrigo 1,101 11 5 "" Le Figlie del Vento 1,122 9 6 "" Junior Magli 1,053 13 7 "" Carmen Amato 900 14 8 "" Fausto Leali 1,306 3 9 "" Mocedades 1,096 12 10 "" Drupi 891 15 11 "" Anna Identici 1,230 4 12 "" Peppino Gagliardi 1,409 1 13 "" Lionello 1,213 5 14 "" Gigliola Cinquetti 1,120 10 15 "" Alessandro 1,137 7
Second night The second night took place on 9 March 1973 at 21:00 CET. Fifteen artists performed their songs and eight were selected for the final.
+Second night – 9 March 1973 Song Artist Points Place 1 "Anika na-o" Jet 864 15 2 "" Umberto Balsamo 1,342 4 3 "" Gilda Giuliani 1,149 7 4 "" Memo Remigi 1,158 6 5 "" Ricchi e Poveri 1,405 3 6 "" Peppino di Capri 1,535 1 7 "" Lolita 1,046 12 8 "" I Camaleonti 1,262 5 9 "" Bassano 964 13 10 "" Lara Saint Paul 1,145 8 11 "" Alberto Feri 1,135 9 12 "Angeline" Pop-Tops 888 14 13 "" Christian De Sica 1,048 11 14 "" Toni Santagata 1,082 10 15 "" Milva 1,409 2
Final night
The final night took place on 10 March 1973 at 21:00 CET. The sixteen finalists performed their songs again and a winner was chosen.
The winning song was "" performed by Peppino di Capri, and written by di Capri, Franco Califano and Gianni Wright. "" performed by Peppino Gagliardi, and written by Gagliardi and Gaetano Amendola, placed second, and "" performed by Milva, written by Luigi Albertelli and , placed third.
Sergio Endrigo, who was eliminated during the first night, received the Giorgio Berti award given to the best performer, as decided by journalists at the event.
+Final night – 10 March 1973 Song Artist Points Place 1 "" Memo Remigi 1,111 13 2 "" Lionello 1,050 15 3 "" Lara Saint Paul 990 16 4 "" Donatello 1,131 12 5 "" I Camaleonti 1,170 11 6 "" Fausto Leali 1,226 8 7 "" Anna Identici 1,197 10 8 "" Umberto Balsamo 1,224 9 9 "" Wess and Dori Ghezzi 1,295 6 10 "" Peppino Gagliardi 1,482 2 11 "" Milva 1,463 3 12 "" Roberto Vecchioni 1,246 7 13 "" Ricchi e Poveri 1,430 4 14 "" Alessandro 1,065 14 15 "" Gilda Giuliani 1,413 5 16 "" Peppino di Capri 1,710 1
Broadcasts The 1973 edition of the festival was the first to be produced in colour, and although it was broadcast in Italy in black and white, it was broadcast in colour abroad.
Local broadcast In January 1973, RAI announced they would broadcast only the final night of the festival on television, leaving the first two nights broadcast exclusively on radio. The decision was made by RAI's control committee, responsible for overseeing RAI's broadcasting schedule, requested by the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications as part of an initiative to limit pop music television programming for the year of 1973.
Around fifty colour video cassettes of a program featuring performances from the festival's first two nights were produced, distributed exclusively to stores across Italy and shown in store windows on the day of the final.
The first two nights were broadcast via radio on Secondo Programma beginning at 21:00 CET. The final night was broadcast on both Programma Nazionale (television) and Secondo Programma (radio) at 21:00 CET. The final was broadcast on television in Italy to an estimated 20.4 million viewers—six million less than for the previous edition.
International broadcast