The great conductor died at the age of 89. A sixty -year -old career that has gone through the history of the small screen, from Sanremo to Sunday in
Pippo Baudo died. The conductor who for over sixty years has embodied Italian television has left at the age of 89, leaving behind a void that can hardly be filled. Family face for generations, a fixed presence in the highlights of Rai, had become not only a symbol of the small screen, but almost a piece of the house for millions of Italians.
The man who invented format
Born in Militello in Val di Catania in 1936, Giuseppe Baudo – for all simply Pippo – had started taking his first steps on TV in the 1960s. He immediately understood that television was not only entertainment, but social architecture. Not surprisingly, behind his programs there was almost always his hand: creator, occult director, talent scout. It was not just the one who was in front of the camera, it was the one who decided what had to happen behind the scenes.
The Sanremo Festivals
Nobody like him. Pippo Baudo linked his name to the Sanremo Festival like no one else. Thirteen times he has been the owner of the house, crossing eras, fashions and scandals. Each edition brought Baudo’s imprint with it: the ability to keep the stage, the authority of those who knew the music and the public, the firmness with which they manage the moments of tension. Famous 1995, when he blocked a man live who wanted to throw himself from the Ariston gallery.
The master of Sunday
Baudo was also the man who redesigned television Sunday. With Sunday in, of which he was the face and soul in several editions, he imposed a way of doing popular but not banal TV, capable of mixing show, interviews and music. In those very long hours live, the country was mirrored into a conductor who managed to keep lightness and authority together.
The talent scout
The intuition was his secret weapon. Pippo Baudo launched artists who would then become columns of Italian music and entertainment: from Heather Parisi to Lorella Cuccarini, from Andrea Bocelli to Giorgia. He had a long eye and did not fear risking on new faces, sometimes very young. A talent that made him the “television father” of several generations of artists.
A monumental legacy
Baudo’s last public appearance dates back to a few years ago, always with the same irony and the sharp gaze of those who knew the mechanisms of TV better than anyone else. His inheritance is not only made up of programs and audience records, but of the certainty that without Pippo Baudo Italian television would never have been the same.
