Mina’s first participation in the Sanremo Festival went down in history: let’s find out what happened before performing
There are still many months to go Sanremo Festival 2025, yet we have already been talking about it for several weeks. After indiscretions and rumors, the arrival of confirmation of Carlo Conti, after a long courtship by Rai, as host and artistic director he has “sorted out” doubts and uncertainties and now we are working at a rapid pace to be ready in February without disappointing the expectations of the public and critics after the great successes achieved by Amadeus.
For a few days there was also talk of Mina for Sanremo 2025, but for what reason? The diva of Italian music has a long connection with the Festival even if she hasn’t been seen for a long time now. You know What did you do on your first participation? Something no one imagines.
Mina, the Festival, the first time and the emotion
Mina as artistic director of the Sanremo Festival 2025. This was discussed until a month ago, underlining that the singer would have wanted carte blanche to accept the role that had already been offered to her in 2019 as well. Lots of smoke and no fire for nothing. The artistic direction of the Festival remained in the hands of the host, Carlo Conti who already has developed some new lines compared to the choices made by Amadeus.
But let’s go back to Mina. During her very bright career the singer only participated twice at the Italian music festival. The first in 1960 and the second, his last time, the following year. Two very particular editions. With the first ever, the singer brought the song “It’s true!” to the Ariston. written by Umberto Bindi.
Precisely on this occasion, as reported by the official Rai Cultura website, the singer was the protagonist of an episode that remained in the history of the Festival: due to too much emotion he burst into tears during rehearsals. A mix of feelings that the young woman had not been able to manage and so the tears arrived spontaneously and wonderfully on stage. During the competition everything went well, Mina’s performance was a true triumph with many flowers thrown on stage to pay homage to her skill, a scene that was not repeated with any other singer in the competition.
More tears for the singer
The tears for Mina on the Sanremo stage did not only come at her first performance. The artist burst into tears again the following year, his last time in the race. The situation, however, was different as was the outcome. For 1961 there were great expectations for her, according to her predictions Mina would be the winner of the Festival. The media pressure for the singer, already very famous, was through the roof. And so she couldn’t resist. During her performance, her voice completely broke, Mina burst into tears and left the stage.
