Italy’s first rehearsal

Pierro, Ignazio and Gianluca are standing side by side towards the front of the stage. The song starts with a panoramic view of the dark stage – the background is lit in blue and some dark figures can be just made out.The rods framing the stage are then also lit in blue. There follows Gianluca’s part and a close up shot of the young singer, then the parts of Ignazio and Piero in succession. The trio are wearing matching dark suits with red sports shoes. Just in time for the chorus, the background gets lit brighter and we can know make out that the dark figures are in fact an arrangement of classical statuary, some of it Roman, some of it ancient Greek (the Aphrodite of Milos, a.k.a Venus of Milo is quite prominent in the arrangement) with moving clouds behind them. The group sound really relaxed, to the point of looking a bit casual, but are in good voice from the beginning – to start with, they sound less operatic than in the recorded version of the song. My impression is that there is just a little more focus paid to Ignazio and Piero rather than Gianluca. When the bridge is repeated for a second time, the stage lighting changes into ward yellow and there is an interesting camera sequence as the three singers deliver their parts in succession. There must be a bit of an issue with the sound level of their earphones as they keep on pushing them firmer against their ears and, at some point during the second run, Gianluca can be seen gesturing with his arms to the crew to turn up the volume. The presentation closes with another long shot of the trio.