This evenning, February 17, it starts the 59th festival di Sanremo. Apparently the big ones will perform the first night and today also most of their duet partners have been announced, amongst them Lara Fabian, who represanted Luxemburg in 1988 in a contest won by Celine Dion. Lara came 4th and it took her some years to step out of Celine's shadow... Most everyone of the big ones is releasing new album on Friday. Here are the the big ones with their duet partners:

Afterhours - Il paese é reale (Christiano Godano and Antonio Rezza)
Albano - L'amore é sempre amore (Michele Placido)
Alexia ft Mario Lavezzi - Biancaneve (Teo Teocoli)
Marco Carta - La forza mia (Tazenda)
Sal da Vinci - Non riesco a farti innamorare (Gigi D'Alessio)
Dolcenera - Il mio amico unico (Syria)
Gemelli DiVersi - Vivi per un miracolo (The BMB Marching Band)
Fausto Leali - Una piccola parte di te (Fabrizio Moro)
Marco Masini - L'Italia (Lara Fabian)
Nicky Nikolai & Stefano di B. Jazz Quartet - Piú sole (Jamie Cullum and Mario Venuti)
Povia - Luca era gay (Alessandro Matta)
Patty Pravo - E io verrò un giorno lá (Dave Wecl and Nathan East)
Pupo, Paolo Belli & Youssou N'Dour - L'opportunitá (Gianni Morandi and Raul Bova)
Francesco Renga - Uomo senza etá (Daniela Dessi)
Tricarico - Il bosco delle fragole (Lory Del Santo)
Iva Zanicchi - Ti voglio senza amore (Gabriel Garko

To update and ensure the survival of the contest, the organisers have made what can be described as "revolutionary changes" for the 2009 edition of San Remo festival.

The total number of songs have been reduced in the main categories: 15 songs in the "Artisti" category (formerly "Big") and 8 songs in the "Proposte" category (formerly "Giovani"). The songs from the Proposte will be played a week before on the radio, a novelty at the festival. Also one big change has meant that the jury is no more with the judges being present at the Teatro Ariston and the orchestra is only allowed to vote on the 4th night. The event will run for 5 days and have 3 hours coverage each night and appears to be looking more like Eurovision some 35 years ago.