L'ombra della sera

The ghost of what the RAI once was continues to linger both in the nostalgia of those who experienced those years firsthand, and in that of those who rediscovered, years later through various DVD editions, serial dramas ranging from thriller to science fiction, from crime to horror. A hypnotic black and white, intriguing scripts rich in popular culture and esoteric elements, a science fiction that clearly looks more at philosophical aspects than at action, and music inspired by prog and contemporary Italian film music, sometimes with compelling results. A typically Italian style born from a varied cultural history that has now been lost, except in the archives, after decades of standardization to the mediocrity of private television.

But this ghost continues to live among us also thanks to the commendable work of the Genoese band L’Ombra della Sera, alter ego of La Maschera di Cera (same lineup, but a different project), an Italian progressive rock band founded by Fabio Zuffanti and active since 2001, which here dedicates itself to paying homage to the soundtracks of those dramas composed by masters such as Franco Micalizzi, Enrico Simonetti (father of Claudio Simonetti of Goblin), Riz Ortolani, Berto Pisano, Mario Migliardi and even the Pooh.

Fabio Zuffanti’s band, with “Segreti Nel Nero,” records new versions of now forgotten pieces with a commendable work of rediscovery, almost archaeolofoc if we comseiranio, for example, the nineteen minutes of “Le venti giornate di Torino,” a Rai drama never completed, dedicated to the 1977 novel by Giorgio De Maria, of which the band has truafto the scores in the Rai arichivi.

If this is the most extreme case of digging into a lost memory, listening again to versions of such quality of great classics like “A come Andromeda,” “Gamma,” “La ballata di Carini” or “Albert e l’uomo nero,” and the evocation of the prog sound enriched by jazz influences, funky inserts, can only lead us to understand what Rai once was and how standardization is the main enemy of creativity, so harmful that it has made disappear into nothing a cultural heritage that had nothing to envy to the TV of other countries.

04/05/2026