1955 in Italian television
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- 27 January. RAI airs on TV, for the first time, the Sanremo Festival, presented by Armando Pizzo. The final evening is broadcast in Eurovision. Claudio Villa wins the contest, with Buongiorno tristezza.[1]
- 8 March. First TV live feed from La Scala. RAI broadcasts an act of La sonnambula, with Maria Callas (conducted by Leonard Bernstein and directed by Luchino Visconti).[2]
- 28–29 April. First TV live feed from the Italian Parliament for the election of the Italian President Giovanni Gronchi;[2]
- 19 November: Debut of Lascia o raddoppia? (see below), the first Italian TV program to meet massive success and become a phenomenon of costume. During Saturday evenings, crowds gather in the public establishments owning a TV set, as private sets are still rare. In an attempt to keep up with television, cinemas project this show before the showing of films. The presenter Mike Bongiorno and the contenders (usually, eccentric province savants) become the first stars of the Italian TV.[3]
- 26 November: for the first time, RAI broadcasts a boxing match, the bout in Milan, between Dulio Loi and Seraphin Ferrer for the European lightweight championship, chronicled by Carlo Bacarelli. The Loi’s victory arouses the enthusiasm of the TV viewiers.[4]
- 17 December. The first Lascia o raddoppia’s champion, music expert Lando Degoli, is eliminated for a wrong answer to an ill-formed question. (“In which opera did Giuseppe Verdi use the contrabassoon?”). In reality, Verdi used the instrument in two operas, Macbeth and Don Carlos. For two weeks, the "contrabasson affair" dominates the press and the public opinion, causing also parliamentary interrogations. Eventually Degoli is readmitted to the contest, but he chooses to quit, serving the 2.560.000 liras gained till then.[5]
- 24 December. The TV service is extended to Naples and Campania.[2]
- 30 December. Eduardo De Filippo debuts on television with Miseria e nobiltà (Poverty and nobility), written by his father Eduardo Scarpetta.[6]
- The RAI general director Filiberto Guala hires several young intellectuals, the so-called “corsairs” (by the formative courses followed). Among them are Umberto Eco, Angelo Guglielmi, Gianni Vattimo and Furio Colombo.[2]
- Debut of Piero Angela[7] and Ruggero Orlando as correspondents, respectively, from Paris and New York. Orlando will serve in this place for seventeen years. Due to his unconventional behavior, he became the most popular Italian TV journalist.[8]