MILAN — Politics is a show, and every country has its favorite. The United States is bringing on yet another Hollywood classic (the aging action hero, the desert, the border, the money). France is offering its periodic re-enactment of its Revolution, with gilets jaunes replacing sans-culottes. Germany’s national orchestra is saying goodbye to an exhausted chancellor/conductor. Britain is deep into a Shakespearean tragedy of its own creation: to leave or not to leave Europe…?

And what about Italy? It’s a music festival, of course.

The Italian Song Festival (Festival della Canzone Italiana) is held annually in Sanremo, a quaint seaside resort near the French border, and is by far the most popular television event of the year. This year it will be broadcast live between Feb. 5 and Feb. 9. Held since 1951, it is used for picking the Italian entry to the Eurovision Song Contest and today it attracts more than 12 million viewers — more than half of the country’s TV audience. It combines a song contest with some comedy and a few handsomely paid international guests. Advertisers scramble to squeeze their products into five days of prime-time broadcasts.

But Sanremo, as it is known, is far more than a song contest. It’s a national gathering, like the Academy Awards in the United States. It’s a truce in quarrelsome times. It’s predictable and reassuring. The young like to trash it live on social media, but they too watch it, and talk about little else for days. That is why I’ve accepted an invitation to join the festival’s giuria degli esperti (experts jury), which includes writers, actors and film directors (Sanremo’s organizers didn’t know I was planning to write about them, of course). But watching the Barnum from the inside? How could I say no? It’ll be a master’s degree in political science, anthropology and social studies — all in a few days.

Sanremo’s presenter — and artistic director — changes regularly. Last year and again this year both roles have fallen to a soft-spoken pop singer in his 60s, Claudio Baglioni. His 1972 song “Questo Piccolo Grande Amore” (“This Little Great Love”), lamenting a young man’s obsession about his unattainable beloved in her ultrathin T-shirt, is still an unofficial national anthem; every Italian can sing along with it. On Jan. 9, during the preview news conference, Mr. Baglioni answered a question about immigration. It’s a sensitive topic; the populist government is openly fighting it. He complained that the public mood has turned “nasty.” He said that this government, just like the previous ones, is mismanaging immigration, this time allowing a”a farce” by leaving 50 asylum-seekers at sea for 19 days. (They were finally brought to shore the same day by the Maltese Coast Guard and will be distributed across nine European Union nations).