Coletta’s announcement: “It seems complicated to me to be able to censure the president”. Amadeus: “I respond to controversies with facts”. Rai: “Request to read a text by Zelensky is from the Ukrainian ambassador”
The President of Ukraine Volodymir Zelensky will not send a video to Sanremo 2023, but a “text” that will be read on stage by Amadeus. This was announced by the director of Rai prime time entertainment Stefano Coletta, who underlines: “We are in daily contact with ambassador Melnyk. We have come to the definition of the Ukrainian president’s speech yesterday”.
“It seems complicated to me to be able to censure the president. The control of us executives is prior to the airing of each program, but I smile at the idea of a Rai executive who can censor a president”, continued Coletta, then answering a question on Rai’s preventive control of Zelensky’s message. “We still don’t know the contentwe will be more punctual in the next few days”, added Coletta.
In reference to the ‘control’ of the text, Amadeus also intervened, underlining: “I will read it exactly as it arrives”.
“Words may judge what you say, but they will believe what you do.” On the eve of the opening of his fourth Sanremo, Amadeus thus summarized – reading a sentence read on a calendar that struck him – his state of mind in the face of the inevitable controversies that accompanied the path towards the 2023 festival.
“I find it very romantic to have a letter and be able to read it”, Amadeus said again speaking of Zelensky’s written text that the conductor will read live during the final evening of the festival, Saturday 11 February.
“The controversies are dealt with honestly and end by starting the show. In any case, the controversies go where there is great visibility. So the fact that the festival attracts them confirms the centrality of the event”, underlined the artistic director. While the co-conductor Gianni Morandi underlined how much the Amadeus festival “has returned to be a fundamental appointment for music, because the songs of the festival in recent years have been on the radio for many months after the festival, not just in the 15 days after”.
“Historically, the festival attracts controversy, even politics can seek visibility. Everyone expresses what they want, I’m not saying this to sound democratic at any cost, but everyone has the freedom to express their word, their thoughts. As we do with football. I agree on total freedom. And then experience now teaches me that when the festival lights up, the controversies vanish as if suddenly, “said Amadeus.
THE REQUEST OF THE UKRAINIAN AMBASSADOR – “Regarding the message of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky at the Sanremo Festival, it is not true that Rai has refused to broadcast one of his videos. On the contrary, Rai has always declared itself available to receive an intervention in video or audio form” communicates Rai in a note. “As explained to the press today by the Director of Prime Time, Stefano Coletta, and by the Artistic Director of the Festival, Amadeus, it was the Ukrainian ambassador in Rome with whom both maintained contact who made the request to have a written text of President Zelensky”.
Source-www.adnkronos.com