ITALY

The Italian song was selected on February 14th during the 65th Sanremo Msuic Festival held at the Teatro Ariston in Sanremo and presented by Arisa, Emma, Rocío Muñoz Morales and Carlo Conti. The winner of Sanremo was selected using a mixture of a popular jury, expert jury and televote. The winning act was Il Volo and it was confirmed a few days later that they would sing their winning song "Grande Amore" (Great love).

In a similar way to many of the last few years, RAI used Sanremo to choose, or identify a potential entrant/song. For this year's s Eurovision selection process, the winning song and entrant of the 'big artist' section of the Sanremo contest would have 'first refusal' of the offer of representing the country at Eurovision. In the press conference after the final night the group confirmed that they had accepted the invitation to Vienna.

The song is a stereotypically Italian dramatic ballad sang in an pop-operatic style. It is very orchestral and classic but its style is a little bit on the old fashioned side - even taking into account the group's age. The style of song is in the fashion of modern classical acts such as Il Divo and Collabro who won 'Britain's Got Talent'. In Eurovision terms, this style is not unfamiliar with Bonaparti.lv and Amaury Vassili taking opera to the stage in the last decade. The song has a good structure and grows on you listen after listen and has some very lovely lilting, lyrical chord changes and dramatic orchestral high points.

The trio, Il Volo, consists of Piero Barone, Ignazio Bochetto and Gianluca Ginoble who are all under the age of 23. Although they are young they are very experienced in terms of recording and performing as soloists and as a group. They have performed in many countries throughout the world publicising their first album back in 2010. There is a real discrepancy between the audio and the visuals and it takes you a while to work out that these young guys are singing in that style.

A lot needs to be done to this to be made Eurovision ready. Firstly, it needs to be shortened as it is currently about 40 seconds too long. Curtailing the intro, instrumental breaks and possibly shortening the first verse would possibly put pay to this with minimal faff. It could even be sped up a little bit. They will need to make sure the backing track has the orchestra on full belt - volume level 11! Much will have to be worked on behind the scenes to make this into a show. The boys will have to do much better than walking back and forwards, fist pumping, pointing and standing with a wide gait. They need a big background to go with this - not just pictures of statues. Part of me feels a film of an orchestra behind will make it feel like you are watching something substantial and operatic - this may well go down well in Vienna!

The problem with this is that to many this will feel like a gimmick and almost jokey. The tune isn't quite as instant as other songs in terms of being a memorable but the style of song will stand out. Annoyingly I feel this song would benefit from being in a semi-final then final as multiple listens makes you more aware and more appreciative of them and the song. This almost belongs in the 'who knows' camp because it could easily sway one way or the other. Will depend if other operatic songs join the mix AND if it gets a favourable draw.

ARTIST - Il Volo

SONG - Grande Amore (Great Love)

MUSIC - Francesco Boccia, Ciro Esposito

LYRICS - Francesco Boccia Ciro Esposito

A video of their reprise can also be found on the RAI website - 

http://www.rai.tv/dl/RaiTV/programmi/media/ContentItem-40153a0a-69dc-410b-aa24-34d1141db87e-sanremo15.html