Perhaps these twelve months have not been as sensational as others experienced in the recent past, for better or for worse. Perhaps in that atavistic ritual, in that traditional dance in which someone wins, someone else leaves, between the usual returns and journeys, no event has imposed itself on the others, making everything equally, democratically important. Yet, when a year passes (with its weeks, days, hours…) they are the moments that remain and are necessarily, forcefully remembered. Here is 2023, with its celebrations and its mourning, between art and culture, the immutable and the always new.
January 16th
Goodbye to Gina Lollobrigida
The “bersagliera” was 95 years old. But 2023 is also the year in which, among others, Maurizio Costanzo, the writer Michela Murgia, the “Italian” Toto Cutugno, the actor and director Francesco Nuti, the soprano Renata Scotto, the Messina Anna Kanakis and the Sicilian Sebastiano Lo Monaco.
February 11th
Mengoni with “Due vite” wins Sanremo
Here it is Ariston again. Mengoni is his second triumph at the Festival after the success of 2013 with “L’essenziale”. For him only a fourth place, however, at the Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool (chosen as the home stage by Ukraine, outgoing winner of the 2022 Turin edition), which goes to the Swedish Loreen.
July 5th
Tiziano Ferro opens the music season in Messina
It is the first of a series of concert events which also features the Pinguini Tattici Nucleari (in a San Filippo with 41 thousand spectators) and Ligabue (double date at the Palarescifina: thanks to its rock, great indoor music returns to the city).
July 6
Rosella Postorino comes close to winning the Strega Prize
With «I limited myself to loving you» (Feltrinelli) the writer from Reggio, already winner of the Campiello Prize in 2018, comes second with 170 votes (behind the deceased author Ada d’Adamo) in a list dominated by women.
November 2
Out “Now and then”, the great return of the Beatles
A prophetic title, machine learning, another masterpiece revealed by Lennon. Anyone who loves the Beatles knows this. And ever since McCartney announced that they would return from wherever they were… he couldn’t wait to hear the unexpected, the unheard. The Fab Four’s last song released together with the first (“Love me do”) to close an infinite circle.
December 7
Sarafine is the new queen of X Factor
«I don’t feel like a champion of a generation. I found myself wondering why, at a certain point, I found myself working in Luxembourg from Calabria and holding company meetings without being satisfied. I faced my fears and didn’t care about age and the limits imposed by a social vision according to which at thirty you must already know who you are and you can no longer change. I often told myself that I would return to Italy just to make music and maybe now it could happen, who knows.” In the year that will go down in history more for the controversies between Morgan and Fedez than for the music, Vibo is the name to remember.
December 7
Verdi’s Don Carlo inaugurates the season of the Teatro alla Scala
The great mezzo-soprano Elina Garança, the diva Anna Netrebko, the heroic Luca Salsi, a tormented Michele Pertusi, the superb orchestra and its director Riccardo Chailly, Lluis Pasqual the robust director. Thirteen minutes of applause, also for Liliana Segre. And from the gallery a cry rises: “Long live anti-fascist Italy”.
October 26
“There’s Still Tomorrow” by Paola Cortellesi is released
Rome 1946. Neorealism, luminous black and white, songs that creep into the dialogues, symbols to get rid of the signs. It’s a political film, with a crown of violence on the edge of irony (the tragic one). The directorial debut of the Roman artist hits the critics and the box office. Unanimous consensus also for “I Captain” by Matteo Garrone, Silver Lion in Venice and towards nomination for the next Oscars.
December 18th
Saverio La Ruina wins the Ubu for “Via del Popolo”
“Via del Popolo” is a street in his native Castrovillari where in 1992 the playwright, director and actor founded together with Dario De Luca “Scena Verticale”, the company that has been organizing the “Primavera dei Teatri” for 24 years, a festival on new languages of the contemporary scene To him, a proud Calabrian, the Oscar (the fifth) of our theater for the best Italian text.
December 31st
Rai from Crotone to greet the new year
On the stage set up in Piazza Pitagora Amadeus brings Annalisa, Paola and Chiara, the Ricchi e Poveri, Il Volo, Sangiovanni, Nino Frassica, The Kolors, Cristiano Malgioglio, Dargen D’Amico… After two years in Umbria, ‘L’anno that will come’, broadcast on the first channel, moves to Calabria thanks to the agreement between Rai Com and the Calabria Film Commission Foundation. Luigi Strangis from Lamezia is on stage in Genoa on the Mediaset stage.
And in the end, as soon as you are ready for a new beginning, you find all those moments there, like snapshots of memory in another album of memories..