At Eurovision, the noises of notes rise before the grand final on Saturday evening in Italy: from the wolves of Norway to the Ukrainian favorites defending the colors of their country under the grapeshot, the great song contest should break new decibel records .
Like almost every year since 1956, the colorful and strong-voiced candidates will perform live in front of tens of millions of viewers hoping to take the charts by storm. As dashing, noisy, kitsch and popular as usual, this 6th edition is being held at the Pala Olimpico in Turin (Piedmont, north-west).
Among the hair-raising contenders for the title of Pope of Cathodic Pop, Norway’s Subwoofer perform “Give that Wolf a Banana” in masks of crude canines with long white fangs, and France’s Alvan & Ahez, whose title “Fulenn” is inspired by a Breton legend.
France, given in 15th position by the site eurovisionworld.com which aggregates several online betting sites, is chasing following its first victory since that of Marie Myriam (“The child and the bird”) in … 1977.
The Serbian Konstrakta, she literally washes her hands in a basin, ironically regarding “the beautiful hair of Meghan Markle”, the American wife of British Prince Harry.
That’s for the offbeat appetizer.
But the festivities this year are placed under the disastrous sign of the war in Ukraine, less than three months following the outbreak of its invasion on February 24 by Russia, excluded from Eurovision the next day by the European Broadcasting Union. Television (EBU), organizer of the event.
– Who to beat Ukraine? –
Favorite of bookmakers, Ukraine competes with the Ukrainian group Kalush Orchestra, whose song “Stefania” mixes hip-hop and traditional music on intimate lyrics – written before the war – which resonate strongly with current events (“I will always find the way home even if all the roads are destroyed”).
With six on stage, the members of the group, all of fighting age, benefit from a temporary dispensation issued by the government of kyiv, but they will have to return home to take up arms as soon as the competition is over. One of them stayed in the country.
“A member of the group joined the territorial defense of kyiv on the third day of the war,” singer Oleh Psiuk told AFP. “We are very worried regarding him, we hope to find him safe and sound when we return.”
Behind Ukraine, bettors are betting on the Briton with the stratospheric voice Sam Ryder, who sings “SpaceMan” in solo and in combination, the Swede Cornelia Jakobs with a fairly classic glamor (“Hold me closer”), and Mahmood & Blanco (“Brividi”) who would like to give Italy a second consecutive victory following the rock group Maneskin in 2021.
The Spanish singer of Cuban origin Chanel, dressed – very lightly – as a bullfighter closes the top 5 with the rhythmic Latin title “SloMo”.
If successful, Ukraine would double down following their victory in 2016 – two years following the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea by Russia – with Jamala and the title “1944”, a song recounting the deportation of the Tatars by Stalin.
But to win, the Kalush Orchestra will have to beat the 24 other finalists by collecting the maximum number of votes from professionals in the music world and the public in each country, who cannot vote for their own candidate.
The next edition of the competition would then be held, at least in theory, in Ukraine, which would be in the words of Oleh Psiuk “a new, integrated, developed and flourishing Ukraine”.
