The live broadcast on the radio’s Second Programme starts at 22:00, 45 minutes before the television broadcast. According to the announcer the television programme links with the “Giardino d’Inverno” at the Town Hall Casino of Sanremo” at 22:45 after the variety show “Un, due, tre” with Ugo Tognazzi and Raimondo Vianello. The advent of television, even though with a stutter, gradually becomes one of the most innovative factors of the 1995 edition, especially with reference to the function that the new medium will have in the liaison between the songs and television exposure. The other novelty within the technical and artistic arena is the advent of ‘play-back’ even though it is not referred to by this expression. Due to the unexpected sickness of Claudio Villa on the final evening, the recorded voice substitutes live performance for the first time on TV, in Sanremo and any other musical event. But contrary to similar instances that took place later (for example the vocal play-back of Bobby Solo in 1964 for Una lacrima sul viso) in this edition, the singer performing on play-back not only isn’t disqualified but actually wins the festival. This decision raised eyebrows and was subject for dispute during the following years. The central theme of this fifth edition is once again targeting the young and the new songs with the consequence of excluding the more popular singers. Thirteen singers out of the fifteen competitors were debutants, an apparent decision supported by the artistic director Giulio Razzi. There were two orchestras: the Sestetto Azzurro lead by Alberto Semprini that had performed in previous editions and the new entry of l’Orchestra Canzoni e Ritmi conducted by Francesco Ferrari. The two maestros had the task of accompany the singers and allocate the songs. Jula De Palma, Nella Colombo, Claudio Villa, il Trio Aurora, Bruno Rosettani and the popular Natalino Otto e Gianni Ravera (that will eventually become an organiser of the festival) sing under the baton of Seprini. Bruno Pallesi, Antonio Basurto, Tullio Pane, Nuccia Bongiovanni, Marisa Colomber, Clara Jaione, i Radio Boys and Narciso Parigi were accompanied by Ferrari. Besides the songs, the fifth edition of the festival is also characterised by dispute of a non-musical character. A major concern was the “Vendicatore di Vercelli” (Vercelli’s Revenger). Publishers, composers and fans of the excluded songs threatened revenge and legal action. The dispute had two main coercions. The first was a group of students from Bologna, fans of Nilla Pizzi, who threatened to revenge the “queen of the Italian song” that was excluded from the festival for the second year consecutively. The second was the evocative threat of the “Vendicatore di Vercelli”, “I will place starving cats in the theatre - threatened the mysterious fan in his letter - and then let’s all see how you will pull yourselves out of this mess, gentlemen of the Rai, with cats in the stalls, dogs on the stage and rabbits on the armchairs”. Luckily no cats were thrown; on the contrary, there was almost a post-war conformity. Another reaction was initiated by Flo Sandon, the girlfriend of Natalino Otto who protested against the neon signboard of Hotel Parigi next to the Casino. “Friends, we must unite against this inequitable competition. Either the hotel switches off its neon sign or you go on strike. All this publicity for Parigi is an injustice!”. Narciso Parigi interrupted the applause: “So what should I say? – shouted the Tuscan singer – all the way from Genoa along the whole Riviera, we haven’t seen anything but billboards signalling: Villa Ridente, Villa del Sole, Villa Paradiso, Villa Celeste. And what about the publicity along the freeways? How many times are we going to read ‘Non è Chinotto se non c’è l’Otto’? How much did Claudio Villa and Natalino Otto pay to get all this publicity?” Brief, harmless incidents creating an almost cabaret atmosphere for a festival that was still naïve of the malice in the record industry. The festival was mainly concerned with awarding the best song and programmed the event during the month of January so that the songs could be performed during carnival. There were many other discomforting incidents. The last minute forfeit of the popular Napoletan singer Giacomo Rondinella ( he was not able to attend due to engagements with his magazine), the exclusion of Pizzi, dismissing Mike Buongiorno as host and promoting journalist Armando Pizzo and Maria Teresa Ruta. 1955 is also the year that gave birth to the role of the ‘guest’, a task that was destined to wield a certain influence on the Sanremo stage. The guest was the veteran singer, actor and entertainer Odoardo Spadaro who had a huge following. He was selected to recite the lyrics of the songs that placed first second and third. Our anthology faithfully reproduces the climate, the atmosphere and of course, the music of that extraordinary edition, almost entirely dedicated to the so called Italian bel canto, a form that best expresses what Italians loved. The CD features all the protagonists (with the exception of two songs and one singer) of an edition that stars the duo of Claudio Villa/Tullio Pane ranking first place with the song Buongiorno tristezza (writen by the “father of the nation” of the Italian melody, maestro Mario Ruccione) and second place with Il torrente. The two singers had their 29th birthday that same January and captured the audience longing for their vocal bravura. The swing style was almost absent (on the radio it had maintained its space), even though there were two protagonists of the genre, Jula De Palma e Natalino Otto who positioned third place with Canto nella valle. The radio was the primary medium but the new format of 45rpm records was catching up and destined to replace the 78 rpm records in just few years. In particular we have the first television occurrence, which at the time was not very influential. The so called “radio singers” were the first to endure the outcast that the new medium inevitably brought about, but in 1955 the divas with no face are still the protagonists of the Italian song.