Toto Cutugno, Italian winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 1990, passes away – a memorial in the light of the contest

Italian winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 1990, Toto Cutugno has died at the age of 80, his manager Danilo Mancuso announced on the afternoon of 22 August 2023.

Two of the biggest successes of Toto Cutugno’s musical career came close to Eurovision. The Italian singer made his first appearance at the nation’s most popular music festival, the Sanremo Music Festival, in 1976 with the band Albatros, when their competition song “Volo AZ 504” came third. Although they had subsequent chart success with the band, Cutugno left the Albatros in 1978 to concentrate on his solo career. A few years later, in 1980, he returned to the Sanremo Music Festival, where he won the competition for the first time as the sole performer with his song “Solo noi” (Only Us).

However, he only achieved international, unheard-of recognition with his 1983 competition song “L’Italiano” (The Italian), which finished fifth, but he also won the Cantanti e vincenti side competition and took home second place in the Critics’ Prize. The working title of the song, “Con quegli occhi di italiano” (“With those Italian eyes”), was originally intended for Adriano Celentano, but he refused to include it in his repertoire, but Cutugno was also considering a performance by Gigi Sabani. In the end, the organizer of the Sanremo Music Festival, Gianni Ravera, convinced Cutugno to perform the song himself.

Toto Cutugno was one of the great Italian performers (Al Bano, Anna Oxa, Milva, Peppino di Capri) who participated the most in the Festival di Sanremo (until the date of this article): 15 times in total (1976, 1977, 1980, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1995, 1997, 2005, 2008, 2010), and in 1990 he won not only the national competition but also the Eurovision Song Contest, which was then organized by Yugoslav television in Zagreb. The background to Italy’s second Eurovision victory is not widely known, however: the song Insieme: 1992 was originally runner-up at Sanremo that year, but Pooh, who had been invited to compete internationally, declined to enter. The competition song, written and composed by Cutugno, was about bringing nations together, and by implication celebrated political integration: the date in the title refers to the year in which the European Union was originally due to begin. His Eurovision victory also gave him the record for the oldest winner at the age of 47, taking over the honor from the 1958 winner André Claveau, a title he passed on to Olsen Brother in 2000.

Since then, Italy has won the world music competition only once: in 2021, Måneskin’s victory won the next year’s edition in Turin.

Already at that time, the 1990 victory was accompanied by the responsibility of hosting the following year’s contest: the Italian broadcaster RAI asked Toto to host the 1991 contest with Gigliola Cinquetti, Italy’s first Eurovision winner in 1964. The contest took place in Rome, and is fondly remembered by fans for its unexpectedness, as Frank Naef (then independent contest director of the European Broadcasters’ Association) had to intervene several times when Toto and Gigliola were dealing with the voting order – and not just for the memorable tie-breaker.

In addition to his legacy as one of the most memorable participants and winners of the Festival di Sanremo and Eurovision Song Contest, Toto has also left behind 5 decades of work. He was awarded a lifetime achievement prize in 2013 in recognition of his national success and his achievements at the Sanremo Song Contest – and on the first night of the contest season, he performed his evergreen hit with the Alexandrov Choir of the Red Army.

One of the biggest stars of Italian pop music, he was born in Fosdinovo, northern Italy, into a family of sailors: he was introduced to music by his father, who played the orchestral trumpet, but he wanted to play the piano from a young age and eventually learned to play the drums and harmonica. His most recent album, I Miei Sanremo, was released in 2010. During his career, he has sold hundreds of millions of records and his concerts have been awaited by hundreds of thousands of fans.

Toto Cutugno passed away in the afternoon of 22 August 2023 in the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan after a long illness. His funeral service took place two days later in the Basilica of Saints Nereo and Achilleo, and he was laid to rest in the presence of his colleague and friend Gianni Morandi, who took part in the Eurovision Song Contest 1970.

Illustration: Toto Cutugno at the 1990 Eurovision Song Contest in Zagreb, then Yugoslavia – photo by Eurovision.tv
Source: Eurovision.tv, RAI News, Telex, MTI, The Guardian / OurVision International