Stage set for 2018 Eurovision nailbiter
LISBON, May 10, (AFP): Portugal plays host for the first time Saturday to the Eurovision Song Contest — the annual music spectacle known for its mix of outrageous costumes, glitz and politics.
Cyprus, Israel, France and Norway are among those predicted to do well at the final in Lisbon but unlike last year — when Salvador Sobral took the Eurovision crown with a jazzy-style ballad — there is no out and out frontrunner.
Cash-strapped public broadcaster RTP has vowed to stage a more “theatrical” contest that makes less use of video projections and new technologies, following in the footsteps of Sobral’s performance at the festival in Kiev last year. Sobral, 28, who said after his win that “music is not fireworks, music is feeling”, turned down the lights and simply swayed to the music as he performed “Amar pelos dois” (“Love for Two”), a song penned by his sister.
“We want our project to be as simple and elegant as Salvador Sobral’s performance in Kiev,” said Eurovision executive producer Joao Nuno Nogueira last month as he discussed RTP’s plans for the contest, often billed as the biggest non-sporting television event in the world.
The competition will cost around 20 million euros ($24 million) to stage, the lowest amount since 2008 when it started to have two semi-finals, the executive supervisor of the contest, Jon Ola Sand, told a news conference in Lisbon late Wednesday.
It is expected to have a combined global television audience of 200 million viewers.
Different
The president of Britain’s main association of Eurovision fans, Alasdair Rendall, welcomed the changes, predicting it would give a “different feel” to the contest, started in the 1950s with the aim of uniting Europe after World War II.
“I think it will make it more of a live music show, it was in danger of becoming too much of a pure TV show,” he told AFP.
“Some of the graphics and LED screens have been taking away from the performance element of it,” added Rendall, who has attended 10 other Eurovision finals.
Sobral’s victory was the first time Portugal had won Eurovision since it entered the contest in 1964 — and the first time a song sung entirely in a language other than English had won since 2007.
His success appears to have inspired more countries to field candidates performing in their mother tongue.
Of the 43 acts taking part this year, 13 are sung entirely in a language other than English, up four from last year.
Among those tipped to win the outlandish annual extravaganza is Norway’s Alexander Rybak, who won Eurovision in 2009. If he does, it would be only the second time in Eurovision history that the same singer has won twice, after Ireland’s Johnny Logan in the 1980s.
After getting some chiding for picking three men to host last year’s competition, contest organisers this year enlisted four Portuguese women to host the final at Lisbon’s Altice Arena, including Daniela Ruah, who stars in hit US TV crime drama “NCIS: Los Angeles”.
Sobral will perform “Amar pelos dois” on Saturday at the final with Brazilian music icon Caetano Veloso. It will be the first time that he hits the stage since he underwent a heart transplant in December.
Viewers and professional juries in all 43 participating countries will pick the winner, with the televoting and juries each representing 50 percent of the outcome.
Here are some facts about the Eurovision Song Contest which this year is being held in Portugal for the first time.
The contest was started in 1956 with the aim of uniting Europe after World War II under the original name of the “Eurovision Grand Prix”.
It has been held every year since then, making it the longest-running international TV music competition, according to Guinness World Records.
Adopted
There are annual music competitions that predate the event, which adopted the title of the Eurovision Song Contest in 1968, but none of them are broadcast on television.
Often billed as the biggest non-sporting TV event in the world, organisers predict this week’s two semi-finals and the finale in Lisbon on Saturday will have a combined global audience of around 200 million viewers.
The five biggest contributors to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which operates Eurovision, automatically qualify for the finale along with the host nation of the event, which changes every year. The so-called “Big Five” are Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
While Australia is on the other side of the world, the contest has since the 1980s been hugely popular in the country, especially among its large population of descendants from European countries, and in 2015 the EBU agreed to let it take part in the competition.
Australia’s participation was initially set to be a one-off event but it has taken part in every subsequent edition, finishing second in 2016 when Korean-born Australian singer Dami Im represented the country.
With the notable exception of Sweden’s legendary disco group ABBA, which won Eurovision in 1974 with its hit song “Waterloo”, winning the competition has for the most part not been a guarantee of lasting international success.
ABBA, which sold more than 400 million albums, announced last month that they have reunited to record two new songs, 35 years after their last single.
Conceived during the Cold War, Eurovision has always been as much about geopolitical drama as it has been about music.
Last year Ukraine did not let Russia’s candidate, wheelchair-using singer Yuliya Samoilova, enter the country to take part in the competition due to a row between Kiev and Moscow over Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
The contest already fuelled tensions between the two countries the year before after Ukraine’s singer, Jamala, took the crown with “1944”, a song about Joseph Stalin’s mass deportation of Crimean Tartars during World War II.