According to La Stampa (as reported by Donna Pop), Diodato will return to the Sanremo stage this year as a special guest. He is expected to open Night One on Tuesday 2 March with a performance of “Fai Rumore”.
Although many fans had been hoping that Diodato would be participating once again to reclaim his title, he confirmed prior to the publication of the Campioni line-up that we would not be participating. He has recently enjoyed success in Italy, including an MTV EMA Award for Best Italian Act.
Journalist Andrea Conti further reported these claims via Twitter:
I’ve been saying / asking for years. It makes sense that the winner of Sanremo from the year before opens the evening. So it will be with #Diodato and his #FaiRumore, as La Stampa anticipates. We hope it will become practice and custom for the years to come.
Translation of Andrea Conti’s tweet
Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest
Back in 1956 Italy were amongst the seven countries that took part in the inaugural Eurovision Song Contest. Before their first win, Italy scored two third place finishes in 1958 and 1963. Italy’s first win came in 1964 with Gigliola Cinquetti’s ‘Non ho l’età’ in 1964. Which won the contest in Copenhagen with 49 points. Their next top three didn’t come until 1974 – again with Gigliola Cinquetti. ‘Si’ finished in second place, behind Sweden’s ABBA.
In 1990, Toto Cutugno became Italy’s second, and most recent, winner with ‘Insieme: 1992’. It won the contest with 149 points. During the 1990s Italy took part a further four times, before taking a 13-year break from the contest from 1998 to 2010.
Since their return to the contest in 2011, they have finished in the top three on three occasions – second in 2011, third in 2015 and second in 2019. Last year Diodato won the 70th edition of the famous Sanremo Festival and was selected to represent Italy with ‘Fai rumore.’ Unfortunately the EBU was forced to announce the cancellation of the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
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