It will be the face of a 106-year-old woman, a direct witness of one of the most decisive days in our history, to remember from the stage of Sanremo Festival the 80 years of the Italian Republic. The artistic director and host announced it Carlo Conti, received on Friday morning at the Quirinale Palace together with the competing singers by the president Sergio Mattarella.
«On stage we will talk about this important anniversary», explained Conti, addressing the Head of State, «and we will do so by hosting a lady who is 106 years old and who on that very 2nd June 1946 had the honor of voting for the first time. It’s our way of celebrating this Republic and the freedom we all have since that day».
The choice to bring on stage a woman who participated in the institutional referendum of 1946 recalls a fundamental step: for the first time women also voted. That gesture, simple and solemn at the same time, marked the full entry of Italian women into the democratic life of the country and remains one of the foundations of our civil coexistence.
The meeting at the Quirinale: pop culture and institutions
The announcement took place in a climate of strong symbolic value. For the first time in history the President of the Republic received the cast of the Festival at the Quirinale with all the competing singers (except Patty Pravo) together with Conti and the co-host Laura Pausini. A gesture that seals the link between popular culture and republican institutions.
Mattarella wanted to underline how the Festival is «a moment that gathers and urges young people to commit and participate in the dimension of pop and popular music» and “an important event in the life of the country”. He recalled the first edition of 1951 – «I was ten years old» – evoking the “unmistakable” voice of Nunzio Filogamowhen Sanremo lived only through the radio and the imagination of listeners.
The Head of State also recalled the economic and social value of the music industry, a “flourishing” and significant reality for the country: «What you do is an expression of your artistic ability, but also a contribution to the cultural and social life of our country».
The meeting ended with a moment of levity when the artists sang Sky blue. Mattarella smiled and, with irony, explained do not join the chorus “so as not to disturb him”, recalling a childhood teaching. A simple curtain, but capable of restoring the familiar and cordial atmosphere of a meeting that combined solemnity and spontaneity.
Civil memory and responsibility
The reference to the 80 years of the Republic places the 2026 edition of the Festival within a broader framework. Not just a show, but an opportunity for civil reflection. Not just a singing competition, but a symbolic space where the national community meets. On the stage that reaches millions of Italians every year, the memory of the Republic will thus enter homes with the simple force of a personal history. Because democracy is not just an institutional structure: it is a web of faces, gestures, lives that continue to speak. And what better occasion than Sanremo?
