🇬🇧 On the first night of Sanremo 2026, everyone was bored – Cool Haunted by nss magazine
Between artificial intelligence and memories of the past, here's how the first evening hosted by Carlo Conti went
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To explain what the Sanremo Festival represents today, two moments from the 76th edition of the song contest hosted by Carlo Conti are enough: Mrs Gianna Pratesi, 105 years old, recalling her first vote in 1946, and the AI moment in which both host and audience are artificially turned into ducks to the tune of Nilla Pizzi’s classic Papaveri e papere (a blatant piece of product placement, as well as a frightening and unsettling gimmick, disturbing in the same way as a sequence from a David Lynch film).
This clash between past (Mrs Gianna) and future (artificial intelligence) played out on the Ariston stage, which, compared to Amadeus’ tenure, continues to take steps backward in terms of spectacle, interaction, and entertainment. Conti seems to be in search of a renewed sense of rigor for this year’s Italian Song Festival, dedicated to one of its founding fathers, Pippo Baudo, who passed away last year. The problem, however, lies in the friction between the two souls of a show that knows it cannot forget what Sanremo has been in recent years, yet tries to reclaim a sense of austerity. This translates into a lineup of thirty competing artists (too many), a broadcast running from 8:40 p.m. to 1:20 a.m. (too long), and little effort to offer anything that feels truly recreational for the audience, including a large portion of the songs themselves.
A meme from the Instagram profile Crudeliamemon, posted on the opening day of the festival, sums up the shared sentiment rather well. If Amadeus’ vision was a roller coaster whose overall impression could be summed up by the memorable sequence from The Hangover, Carlo Conti’s comes across as a seriousness that strains to appear witty, finding its only moments of humor in poking fun at the host’s desire to keep all the contestants on schedule. Contestants he himself selected, and whom he chose to keep at an undeniably excessive number. One of those things that really would have benefited from change, and yet, apparently, when something is kept, it is always, and only, the worst part.
That said, it is not strictly necessary to miss Amadeus’ now past hosting, which ended two years ago. As with all things, it is easy to speak in hindsight and remember the past with a certain sense of nostalgia. Still, it is also true that Conti’s work felt more like a dutiful assignment than a genuine celebration, mirrored in the ballad-heavy spirit of many of the songs, which only occasionally dare to stray from the trajectory of the classic festival-winning tracks. The hosting style, moreover, appears even more rigid when contrasted with the precise yet light-hearted preparedness of the evening’s first co-host. A Laura Pausini who, oddly enough, did not sing—despite owing the start of her career to the festival—but who at least acted as a counterbalance to what should be Carlo Conti’s composure, which often turns, especially alongside his co-hosts, into misplaced severity.
A showcase for the singer whose latest “scandal” involved snappy replies posted by her team under the comments of a video of the cover Due vite by Marco Mengoni, performed as a duet with French singer Julien Lieb – an episode that nonetheless allowed her to win back the audience’s affection. Pausini also carved out a few good Samaritan moments, repeatedly stressing the importance of world peace (to put it briefly), while also delivering some of the more light-hearted slips, from the microphone she had “in hand” to the memory of Belén’s infamous butterfly in 2012.
Viewers were already captivated, instead, by this now almost mythological presence in Italy, Can Yaman, arrested a few days ago in Turkey and released shortly after, as he himself explained during the official press conference. Another protagonist of a conciliatory interlude between past and present, when the new Sandokan met the legendary Kabir Bedi, who portrayed the iconic character for six episodes back in 1976. An encounter, unfortunately spoiled by the ill-advised arrival of Carlokan, complete with a decidedly out-of-place photomontage.
The 76th edition of the Sanremo Festival therefore gets off to a subdued start, as we wait for the songs to grow on us and gradually find their way. In the meantime, praise goes to the female contestants, the most daring on stage, as well as to the good taste of the male contestants, all impeccably dressed. The best of the night (and perhaps we can already say of the festival?) are precisely those artists who manage to reconcile tradition and youth within themselves: Fulminacci, in his accountant-style suit, singing Stupida sfortuna, and Maria Antonietta and Colombre with La felicità e basta, the singer wearing a dress that pays homage to Nada’s 1969 look from Ma che freddo fa.
What we are happy to have left behind from previous years? The singers’ obsession with scoring points in Fantasanremo. As for the rest, «it’s a gliding flight», as Loredana Bertè sang in ’82, so we shall see who lands on the podium of a rebuilt, rethought, and cleaned-up festival, one that would not be Sanremo, or Italian television for that matter, if, at the most socially and historically significant moment of the evening, with Mrs Pratesi and her vote for the abolition of the monarchy, the word “Repupplica” had not appeared on screen.