Levante towards Sanremo: “I would abolish the cover evening”
An album, a club tour, and even a debut as an actress in a series on Rai 1, and also a doubt about one of the moments considered to be the most spectacular of the festival, but also one of the most stressful for the artist: “I don’t know about the other colleagues, but when they tell you that you’re going to Sanremo you’re very happy, and the second thing you think is: ‘shit, the cover'”, says Levante, in a disarming manner and with the passion that distinguishes his approach to music and work.
She is the first of the Sanremo 2026 artists to present herself to the press to talk about her projects which revolve around her participation in the Festival, where she will arrive with “Sei tu”. But that is the tip of the iceberg, part of a process that has already started a few months ago with the publication of several singles, and which will lead to the publication of “Dell’amore il massimo e altri passi di dance”, the new album, during 2026.
“I probably said that I wouldn’t do it again”, says the singer-songwriter, regarding her return to Sanremo after participations in the past, in 2020 and 2023. But this time she will present herself differently from her previous appearances on the Ariston stage: “Sei tu”, she explains, “it’s a song that I decided to bring not so much for the theme but for the dress: it’s a naked, carnal song, which arrives on tiptoe, with the voice and the orchestra protagonists. On that stage I have always wanted to bring muscularity, movement. My most delicate, suspended, even open component has always been there in the records, but I had never shown it at Sanremo”.
The ritual of the pre-Sanremo press conference and the new album
The Sanremo pre-festival press conferences have a now codified ritual. In the weeks preceding the start of February 23rd, artists try to prepare the press – which is part of the voting mechanism – and the public, explaining how that mechanism, which has its central moment in the Ariston performances, is made up of different mechanisms and events. Levante does it in its own way, with a broader reflection on its own path.
On the new album, the singer-songwriter explains that she has chosen a different strategy compared to the past: “I decided to anticipate many singles because I wanted there to be more attention on the songs. When the album comes out everything burns in an instant, and I’m sorry about this, because there’s a lot of work behind it”, she explains, referring to “Maimai”, “Niente da dire”, “Dell’amore ilarancio” and “Sono blu”, released between June and December of last year. A work which, he says, is being born “around many electric guitars, with an important production which however does not detach itself from my personal taste: there are the synths, the grooves that belong to me, but in the album that you will discover there is a heavily played part, with guitars and also a slightly 70s and 80s world that I hadn’t explored so much before”. The result will be an admittedly heterogeneous album: “I’m not afraid to show all these tastes, they are many, different, but they are part of me. It’s a record with very different songs: it’s no coincidence that ‘Sono blu’ is the exact opposite of ‘Sei tu'”.
“Sei tu” is a song that talks about the body rather than words: “It is a very physical song, which describes the physical sensations of a body in love, overwhelmed by the emotions that love makes us feel. I presented it by referring to the ‘skin’: perhaps I could have said ‘body’, but ‘skin’ is more beautiful. What I feel under the skin you cannot see: it is something that overwhelms me and moves me, to the point of not being able to declare my love. It is so strong, and perhaps it is there also the fear of not being enough to verbalize it.” The production also follows this idea of nudity: “The voice has no choirs, it has no doubles, it is not dubbed: the voice arrives, the orchestra arrives. It is really on tiptoe. And it is a new experience for me in Sanremo”.
Cover or not cover, featuring or not featuring
From here also arises one of the most disarming outbursts of the meeting with journalists. The ritual of the pre-Sanremo press conferences includes the question about the evening of the covers, which in turn is now an integral part of the Festival show, but also a significant concern for the artists, already involved in a week full of commitments of all kinds, in addition to the main performance.
“I would abolish cover night,” he says, laughing. “I don’t know about the other colleagues, but when they tell you that you’re going to Sanremo you’re very happy, and the second thing you think is: ‘shit, the cover’”.
The list will be revealed later, also because it is a work in progress. Levante says she would have loved to bring Alanis Morissette and do “Ironic” or “You Oughta Know,” and that her dream duet would be Paul McCartney. She says she spoke to her “Sicilian older sister” Carmen Consoli, who will be on tour in that period and gave her some advice. If we exclude the revisitation with guests for the ten years of “Manuale destroyed”, the one with Consoli in “Lo Strict Necessary” is one of the few duets contained in her discography, and the next album will also be no exception: “There is no one on the album at the moment. I don’t feel the need. In six albums I will have done two or three collaborations, no more”.
A tour and a TV series
The journey that accompanies Sanremo does not end with the race. In parallel, her television debut as an actress will also arrive in the Rai 1 miniseries “The Invisible – The Capture of Matteo Messina Denaro”, broadcast on 3 and 4 February: after a small part in “Romantiche” (2023) by Pilar Fogliati, this is in fact her debut as an actress, wanted by the producer Pietro Valsecchi.
And if the album “Of love, failure and other dance steps” does not yet have a date, there are those of “Of Love – Club Tour 2026” tour: debut on Thursday 29 April in Padua, while the last date set for now is May 19 at Alcatraz in Milan, a few meters from the listening bar in the northern part of the city where he met the press.
Make yourselves comfortable: the great Sanremo show has just begun and, like every year, it will show its effects on the agendas of artists, industry and public for the rest of the year.
