A number of people attending the concert organised by the Malta Labour Party on Tuesday evening in Freedom Square started protesting when Italian singer Toto Cutugno announced he was going to sing the song he wrote for the EU, Insieme: 1992.
The protesting members of the audience are thought to have been re-living Malta’s pre-accession days when the Labour Party was campaigning strongly against EU membership.
Organiser Norman Hamilton yesterday told The Malta Independent that the singer, towards the end of his performance, decided to sing the song Insieme: 1992.
Cutugno won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1990, held in Zagreb in Croatia, with the song, which speaks about the EU member states. The title of the song refers to the Maastricht Treaty, under which the European Community became known as the European Union in 1992.
Before he started singing, Cutugno said he wanted to dedicate the song to the Maltese because 1 May was also the third anniversary since Malta joined the EU, said Mr Hamilton.
Furthermore, he added, Cutugno told his audience that he was very happy that Malta had joined the EU. That was when a “small part of the crowd” started booing.
Cutugno turned perplexed to Mr Hamilton and asked him in Italian, live on mike, if he had done something wrong. (Ho fatto una c******? he asked.)
“At that point I stepped out on stage and explained to Toto that I would speak to the public in Maltese. I explained to them that this was one of his biggest successes, with which Toto Cutugno won the 1990 Eurovision song contest,” said Mr Hamilton.
“As soon as Toto started singing, everything was all right and everyone started joining in. There were no more problems after that and it was really a very small incident,” he explained.
Furthermore, he added, during the rehearsals Toto Cutugno was enjoying himself so much that he asked whether he could extend his performance, which was meant to be half an hour, to just over an hour.
Toto Cutugno’s concert was part of the activities organised by the Malta Labour Party to celebrate Worker’s Day.