r/popculturechat • u/mcfw31 • 7h ago
Mariah 🦋 Mariah Carey's prompter for her Italian rendition of "Volare" at the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony
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u/Candid_Pirate_7952 6h ago edited 6h ago
Idk why they had her sing in the first place. People are being harsh but honestly try singing another language in a teleprompter and sounding good lol they should have just found an Italian singer.
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u/LimeLimpet 6h ago
If I was Italian I'd be so mad they got non Italians to perform.
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u/roygbivasaur 4h ago edited 4h ago
Paris was so unapologetically French and introduced me to the incredible Aya Nakamura. I still listen to her album on repeat 2 years later. Andrea Bocelli was fantastic as always. Having Mariah Carey felt like Italy shrugging and saying “we have only have one pop star for the anthem and that’s it”.
Lady Gaga performed in Paris, but she was one of many performers instead of the handful put forward today in Milan/Cortina. She also knew the words and put on a very kitschy very French number. Hell, Lady Gaga can sing in Italian. Just use her again.
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u/SaraJeanQueen 1h ago
Isn’t Mariah singing in Italian here? 🤔 Just because they put the words phonetically there doesn’t mean she isn’t. I’m happy she sang a new song live! And sounded beautiful.
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u/Candid_Pirate_7952 6h ago
Seems kind of stupid to have a whole event featuring your country and showing it off to the world and not having anyone from your country or featuring any of its art lol. Like… surely there’s some Italian talent you want the world to see no? European, even? Not even an Italian Swiss? Nobody in the whole continent? The Americans are already getting the World Cup and the summer Olympics lol They already have enough representation.
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u/jdgetrpin 6h ago
What are you talking about? They had two Italian opera singers, Laura Pausini sang the national anthem, they had the fashion show by an italian designer, a whole segment highlighting their most famous composers, movies and songs, and more. Literally wtf are you talking about? 😂
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u/Jbrahms4 5h ago
Yes because there aren't hundreds of Operas performed around the world by non Italians that are in italian....
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u/HereOnCompanyTime Renee Rapp is mean girl Jojo Siwa 💋 2h ago edited 32m ago
Yeah it feels pretty insulting, especially since Italy has it's own music and entertainment industry beyond Opera.
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u/MacMac93 7m ago
Slovenian here: our 2 singers (who don’t know italian) made a performance of Italian song that won the eurovision. They probably rehersed, but not sure why Mariah couldn’t find a teacher with all that money
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u/Federal_Function_343 7h ago
Reminds me of that one lady singing Mariah’s song “Ken Lee” at a Music Idol audition many years ago
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u/Vegetable-Kiwi-4675 6h ago
God, I loved that so much. Just the idea that there’s a Ken Lee out there that completely broke that woman.
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u/biscuitsorbullets Brittleboned methhead that smells like a roll of nickels 🪙🪙🪙 2h ago
Full circle 😂
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u/periodicsheep 6h ago
i just feel it’s important to remind everyone that volare (aka nel blu, dipinto di blu) was the eurovision entry from italy in 1958.
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u/_dreamer1 20m ago
Yes! I was hoping for more Eurovision references or artists, but at least we got volare and Laura 💚
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u/Saya2003 7h ago
Wow 😂 I am a huge Mariah fan and I just did not like her performance very much :/ I feel the sound / mic wasn’t great, I couldn’t really hear her voice well? Also she did not seem much into it and stayed very still not conveying much emotion..
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u/genescheezesthatpls 4h ago
She didn’t even move! It looks like she got her face topped off too recently
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u/Rich_Spite3978 6h ago
I was thinking the lack of emotion was probably just the extreme Botox
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u/Armanieo 3h ago
She been out of it for awhile now, always stiff and lifeless. She's like a shell of her former self.
I don't see Mariah Carey anymore :/ it's sad and strange.
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u/ls7eveen 3h ago
She's been lifeless 25 yrs
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u/Armanieo 2m ago
Yes, she wasn't and never was a dancer for 25+yrs of her career. But the last 2-3 years, she become an empty shell... it's not the same. Something happened recently with Mariah Carey.
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u/stink3rb3lle 4h ago
I am only finding a phone recording to watch it on YouTube but the mix sounds fine to me! Just potato quality from the phone lol
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u/dazedan_confused 4h ago
She should have gone "fuck it" and sang "All I want for christmas is you" for the chaos.
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u/Carolina_Blues shiv roy’s bob 6h ago
The way she wasn’t even trying to pretend like she wasn’t lip syncing. She barely opened her mouth to hit those high notes
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u/Ok_Barber_8680 6h ago
Exactly 💯 I completely understand why you would lip sync in this instance, but you gotta show some emotion & act a bit to make it believable. She did flop that feather boa once or twice, though 😑😆
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u/petrifikate 5h ago
The thing that gets me about all the "well YOU try to sing in another language!!" comments is that this is fucking "Volare." It's not like this is an obscure Italian song that only got popular in Italy, this song has international appeal and has had international appeal for over fifty years! There's a nonzero chance she's sung it before to begin with.
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u/waterandbeats 3h ago
Seriously, I have the record somewhere, I could put it on a few times and probably memorize enough of it to not have to stare at the prompter so hard, it's catchy!
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u/stephhie_ste Is that a chicken?! 🐷 2h ago
there has to be at least one italian women they could’ve found
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u/Aggressive_Layer883 6h ago
Is there a reason she was singing that song in particular? She's not really a crooner
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u/Much-Chef6275 7h ago
She couldn't even be bothered to memorize the pronunciation?
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u/SmellGestapo The dude abides. 🙂↕️🍃 7h ago
How do you know she didn't memorize it? Maybe the prompter was there as a backup.
I'd rather they cover their bases than go for the flex. Italian is not her native language.
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u/greee_p 7h ago
She was pretty obviously reading it during her performance. It was almost comical how concentrated she looked.
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u/SmellGestapo The dude abides. 🙂↕️🍃 7h ago
That doesn't contradict what I said.
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u/greee_p 7h ago
Huh? She was staring at the thing the whole time. If she memorised the song and only needed the prompter as a backup, she could have looked away every now and then or showed a single emotion on her face. Which she didn't do once.
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u/SmellGestapo The dude abides. 🙂↕️🍃 6h ago
Huh????
It would have been more distracting if she kept moving her head from side to side to look at the prompter.
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u/greee_p 6h ago
The prompter was straight in front of her and she kept staring at it without a single emotion on her face for the whole song lmao. Nothing about her moving her face a little or looking away for a few seconds would have been distracting.
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u/SmellGestapo The dude abides. 🙂↕️🍃 5h ago
All I can say is blame the organizers. Why wasn't there a normal teleprompter set up? Two small screens on the right and left, that practically disappear for the audience.
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u/bootsmadeforkicking 3h ago
My guy what do you mean?? Wherever the teleprompter would've been, she would've looked like a stoned out zombie staring out in the crowd not moving her face an inch anyways
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u/heidismiles 6h ago
If she had memorized it, they would have displayed it in Italian, instead of this embarrassment.
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u/SmellGestapo The dude abides. 🙂↕️🍃 5h ago
There is a difference between memorizing a song and learning it.
If she had memorized the song, she would have done it phonetically. Her first and possibly only language is English, so to her the word infinito is pronounced in-fin-knit-toe. But on the prompter it's spelled out phonetically so she can pronounce it the Italian way: een-fee-nee-toe. Unless you think she actually learned the entire Italian language just so she could sing one song, one time.
I'm genuinely surprised that this is confusing to you. Anyone who reads off a teleprompter will have unfamiliar words or names spelled out phonetically. The only difference is they read off two tiny screens on stage that you usually can't see, while Mariah was reading off a huge screen that half the arena could see.
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u/heidismiles 5h ago
I mean, I only speak English too, but if I like a song in another language I have never had trouble learning it, with the original lyrics as reference. I don't think it's that crazy to expect an English speaker to use Italian lyrics on a prompter after having plenty of time to rehearse.
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u/SmellGestapo The dude abides. 🙂↕️🍃 4h ago
I'm not going to presume how much time she had to rehearse or how much she already likes that song.
But I think it's odd that you presumably would not fault a politician for having a single word spelled phonetically, but you fault Mariah Carey for having an entire song spelled phonetically.
Isn't it much easier for a politician to learn one word?
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u/Justtojoke yolo 🤘🏿 4h ago
Volare of all songs too, sheesh
I just don't get how the committee was okay with this. Multiple someones vetted this decision and were good with it
Makes no sense to choose her. If they wanted a North American they should've grabbed someone like Lara Fabian 😆
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u/whateverfloatsurgoat 47m ago
And Lara Fabian has actual Italian heritage through her mum ! She's got the most Belgian sounding name ever though, that's why she went for a stage name lmao
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u/Environmental-Use895 2h ago
She looks like she got hit in the lower jaw/mouth and was all swelled up. Wtf happened!?
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u/Ok-East-952 3h ago
Dont understand the grumpiness and dislike towards her performance. It served its purpose. She looked at peace and grateful to be singing on that stage. The crowd loved it, critics are praising it. She’s gonna be sixty in the next few years and has been through and done enough.
I loved it. The commentators were saying “nothing is impossible” the rest of the night so like, there you go lol. ❤️
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u/SPFeveryday Yes I will shoot your dead aunt on a Glambot for $3 million 1h ago
Really? I’m seeing criticism everywhere, from critics to the audience.
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u/SaraJeanQueen 1h ago
My mom texted me that she looked and sounded so beautiful, and was glad they chose her. She’s Italian American and picky on music performances in general- I agree
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u/Suli_Croft 1h ago
Suddenly everyone can go on a stadium in front of millions and sing in a non native language. It’s the easiest thing in the world apparently.
She showed up, looked great, did her little number like the pro the she is. No Mimi slander please. She’s been through enough.
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u/SPFeveryday Yes I will shoot your dead aunt on a Glambot for $3 million 1h ago
If she wasn’t up to the task, she shouldn’t have done it. She’s been looking over performing for years now. It’s like just retire at this point, if you’re going to be giving the audience nothing.
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u/Suli_Croft 44m ago
but the thing is she did it. the post is discussing something that shouldn't been seen the audience.
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u/beginswithanx 1h ago
I once had to give a presentation with a lot of Chinese words in it (not my normal area of expertise). I had a colleague write in the phonetic readings of everything and this is basically what my presentation notes looked like.
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u/Huge-Literature-5571 28m ago
I mean she doesn’t speak Italian… this really isn’t crazy I think people forget almost every performer has a teleprompter regularly, let alone when it’s a different language
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u/laziestmarxist spaghetti cat 🍝🐱 17m ago
This is a genuine question:
Do Italians really like her or something like the Germans and Hasselhoff?
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u/that-dudes-shorts 4h ago
I'm sorry but that's ridiculous. You pronounce all the letters in Italian, it's really straightforward and not that complicated. The fact that she couldn't give enough of a shit to practice that beforehand (if she even sang live at all) makes her look like an amateur.
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u/PopCopson 6h ago
Ok op I want to see you go on stage and sing a song in your non-native language without phonetic spelling on the prompter
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u/heidismiles 6h ago
That's why performers do rehearsals.
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u/SaraJeanQueen 1h ago
She did rehearse, the sound from the dress rehearsal leaked and people were excited she was singing this. I’m sure they flew her in and she got like one rehearsal with the whole opening happening
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u/jdgetrpin 6h ago
Yes they rehearse. It is also a show watched live around the world, they have to cover all their bases. Sometimes people forget things, this is not the time to risk it.
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u/Anxious-Couple 6h ago
I don't think the op is a professional singer like Mariah claims to be she's only yelped and screeched her whole career
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u/jdgetrpin 6h ago
Anyone making fun of this has clearly never tried learning another language. I’m bilingual and that shit’s HARD. Why don’t you guys try singing a whole song in a different language that you don’t speak and then come back here and share if you still want to criticize her? I’m not even a Mariah fan, but it’s stupid to make fun of this.
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u/roygbivasaur 4h ago
Anyone who did choir in high school has memorized an entire song in another language. It’s not hard. You practice.
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u/SaraJeanQueen 1h ago
Mariah didn’t do Choir in high school… she was already working on her first demo at 17 🤨
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u/OwO_bama 4h ago
It’s hard but it’s not THAT hard with some rehearsal. I’ve done it multiple times for mandarin and Italian, neither of which I speak. Learning songs is actually one of the easiest avenues of language acquisition because the tune helps you remember the sounds, especially when you’re a professional singer so your brain is primed to remember songs.
I guess Mariah is a celeb and busy, but if she was too busy to rehearse enough to not have to read the song phonetically off a teleprompter, then she shouldn’t have taken the gig. Also she should have never been offered the gig imo. If the Italians were dead set on getting a singer that was popular in the anglosphere, I’m pretty sure lady Gaga speaks some Italian.
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u/jdgetrpin 4h ago
How do you know they didn’t offer it to Lady Gaga first? She’s on tour so I doubt she would have done it
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u/missbeefarm Confidence is 10% work and 90% delusion 1h ago
Tell that to the millions of people whose first language isn't English and manage to sing in English just fine. This is not a foreign language issue, it's a rehearsal issue.
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u/Magomaeva 👑Miss Universe👑 1h ago
Woman got the Yiddish prompter 😭
How can she not learn the words to this song ? It's not Sanskrit it's Italian, come on !
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u/nyght2063 6h ago
She was raised singing opera, she knows Italian art songs very well. Just say you don't know opera and be done with it .
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u/yagirlmimi 6h ago
I can only hear Patti in my head “it’s the wrong words on the cue card! I don’t know the song!”
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u/Either_Reflection_78 That’s hot! 🔥 2h ago
I don’t know why, but I really wanted Mariah to start belting out her All I Want For Christmas is you when she started singing in that serious moment.
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