>>>ANSA/Amadeus hails 'sensational' Sanremo results

(ANSA) - ROME, FEB 8 - 2024 Sanremo Song Festival artistic director and host Amadeus on Thursday thanked the contestants for contributing to the "sensational results" of the second night of the televised musical jamboree, which garnered an average audience of over 10.3 million viewers during the more than four hours of broadcast, translating into 60. 1% of the audience share.
    On the second night in 2023, average viewers stood at 10.6 million, equal to 62.3% of the share.
    "To say that I am happy is an understatement, 60% is a sensational result," Amadeus, who is hosting the festival for the fifth time, said during a press conference in the Ligurian riviera resort.
    "It has never happened before except last year, let's not get used to it," he added.
    "When I did the first festival they told me that putting a five in front of the second evening would have been sensational.
    "To think of reaching 60 per cent on two evenings is marvellous," he said.
    The first part of the second evening, which was co-hosted by singer Giorgia, garnered 13.4 million viewers with a 57.6% share.
    Instead the second part was watched by 6.9 million viewers, equal to 66.2% of the share.
    Contestants Geolier, Irama, Annalisa, Loredana Bertè, and Mahmood topped the ranking on the second evening drawn up on the basis of new rules involving joint voting by the TV audience and a radio jury.
    However, Amadeus said during Thursday's press conference that the real highlight was the appearance of Italian pianist and composer Giovanni Allevi, who gave his first public performance after being diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a chronic blood cancer, in 2022.
    "Yesterday one of the most important pages in the history of the festival was written: Allevi taught us something that perhaps everyone knows, but sharing it with everyone is not to be underestimated," said Amadeus.
    "Suddenly everything fell apart for me. I haven't played the piano in front of an audience for almost two years," said Allevi on stage.
    "In my last concert, at the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the pain in my back was so bad that at the final applause I couldn't get up from the stool. And I still didn't know I was sick," he continued.
    "Then came the very bad diagnosis. I lost my job, my hair, my certainties, but not my hope and the desire to imagine, as if the pain was handing me unexpected gifts: gratitude towards the beauty of creation, gratitude for the affection, the strength, the example I receive from other patients - the warriors, as I call them - and the certainty that, when everything collapses and only the essential remains standing, the judgement we receive from outside no longer matters," said Allevi.
    "Since I can no longer rely on my body, I will play with all my soul," he concluded, before launching into a performance of 'Tomorrow', a piece written during his long stays in hospital that received a standing ovation.
    However, the day after the second night was also marked by controversy over the performance of American actor John Travolta, after he appeared on stage at the Ariston Theatre wearing a noted brand of trainers whose logo had not been pixellated out.
    Rai state broadcaster denied making any commercial deal with the 71-year-old Saturday Night Fever, Grease and Pulp Fiction star amid questions about the possibility of hidden advertising.
    Rai added that it had been a "mistake" not to black out Travolta's shoes while artistic director and host Amadeus said he didn't even know what brand the star had been wearing.
    Meanwhile, Travolta fans took to social media to voice their ire over the way the actor had allegedly been "humiliated" and "embarrassed" by being forced to do the fad Chicken Dance with Amadeus and showman Fiorello.
    Travolta had first led Amadeus in the moves of his iconic big screen dances before Amadeus and Fiorello took him outside the Ariston Theatre and taught him the Ballo del Qua Qua, as it is known in Italian.
    On Thursday they admitted that it had been "one of the most terrible gags in the history of TV".
    "We had our second bomb scare at the festival today, but it would have been better if we'd had a bomb scare last night so the Chicken Dance would have been cancelled," said Fiorello.
    "Travolta will never want to come back to Italy," he added.
    (ANSA).