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When Italo Disco Met Sword and Sorcery

It’s almost holiday time in Italy, which means that at least two generations will tune in at unlikely hours to watch the 1991-1996 miniseries Fantaghirò, which airs whenever there’s an available time slot on Mediaset channels. Luckily, it’s available on Mediaset Infinity in Italy and on other platforms of varying degrees of legitimacy worldwide (it was on Eternal TV for some time).

When director Lamberto Bava was getting his sword-and-sorcery miniseries Fantaghirò ready to debut for the 1991 Holiday season, he was envisioning a soundtrack that would match its mood: he wanted a crossover between classical and folk music to convey the pagan and medieval atmospheres. “One night, as I was watching TV, I saw Amedeo Minghi perform,” Bava wrote in his autobiography Il Maestro del Terrore. “It was his moment, and I was told to just forget about it: he was too busy and would never make time for us.”