A VOTE FOR A NEAT SONG

The Ukrainian capital has finally announced the results of the international song contest Eurovision-2017. The winner is a young singer from Portugal Salvador Sobral, who performed a romantic song Amar pelos dois ("Loving for the Two of Us").

According to the results of the two semifinals held on May 9 and 11, twenty-six performers from Moldova, Azerbaijan, Greece, Sweden, Portugal, Poland, Armenia, Australia, Cyprus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Belarus, Croatia, Hungary, Denmark, Israel, Romania, Norway, the Netherlands and Austria represented their countries in the contest. The contestants from Great Britain, Italy, Spain, France and Germany made it to the finals automatically by tradition, which allows representatives of these countries - founders and at the same time sponsors of the contest not to participate in the preliminary selection. Also in the final was the Ukrainian group O.Torvald, as Ukraine was the host of this year's contest. Each of the participants tried their best. Almost all countries have tried to make a show of own performances and sing the songs as loud as possible. Everyone wanted to surprise and amaze Europe. But Europe chose the piercingly enchanting performance of the young Portuguese singer Salvador Sobral and his quiet song about the love and loneliness, Amar pelos dois. Simple, sincere and without embellishment.

Striking unanimity

It seems it was for the first time since the introduction of the 50/50 voting system when the viewers and national juries unanimously had the same verdict. Salvador received 376 points from the viewers and even more impressive 382 points from the jury totaling an unprecedented record of 758 points.

The second place was given to the Bulgarian representative Kristian Kostov (615 points), and the third place went to the Moldovan group Sunstroke Project (374 points). Azerbaijan’s performance this year was less fortunate. A representative of our country, Dihaj (120 votes), with her song Skeletons took only the 14th place. The highest 12 points Azerbaijan got from Italy and Portugal. Of the former post-Soviet countries that made it to the finals, Belarus took the 17th (83 points), Armenia - 18th (79th), Ukraine - 24th (36).

Skeletons was written by the famous Azerbaijani composer and producer Isa Malikov and Swedish Sandra Buerman. They worked with Eldar Gasimov and Nigar Jamal on their winning number for Eurovision-2011. Sandra assisted in the creation of songs Hour of the Wolf, Drip Drop and others. The author of the theatrical stage production for the contest song is the famous Azerbaijani choreographer and director Naila Mamedzade. Despite the simplicity of the idea of ​​staging, it was not so easy to implement it on the Eurovision stage. To achieve perfection, the delegation needed to work with three variants of scenery. The first option, prepared from steel frames, was too heavy - the weight of the wall was 137 kg. The second option, made of wood, did not fit the scene because of rudeness. And the latter was prepared from special metal alloys, which made it possible to simplify the design.

Incidentally, the bookmakers were confidently predicting the victory of a 35-year-old contestant from Italy, Francesco Gabbani. At the song contest, the participant performed an incendiary composition Occidentali's Karma. Second place, in the opinion of the bookmakers, was to be taken by Salvador Sobral, and the third was predicted for Bulgaria, which was represented by a 17-year-old Kristian Kostov born in Moscow. But this year the forecasts of the bookmakers did not materialize. The Portuguese became the winner, and the Italian singer got only the sixth place.

Heart for Salvador

Salvador Vilar Braamcamp Sobral is 27 years old. He is a descendant of a noble family da Silva, whose roots go back to the middle of the XVII century. Salvador has a sister Luisa, also a singer, who has penned Amar pelos dois for the Eurovision. By the way, after the announcement of the results, Salvador performed an encore song with his sister.

The young man was born in Lisbon, but for a long time he has lived in the US and Spain. At first, he was studying psychology but his love for music won. Salvador has been known in Portugal since 2009, where he took part in the third season of the Portuguese analogue of the British show Pop Idol. True, he did not become a winner but was satisfied with only the seventh place.

Salvador Sobral is actively interested in political life and closely follows the problems of refugees. At the press conference of the winners after the semi-finals, he came out in a t-shirt reading SOS Refugees ("Help the refugees"). But most of all the fans were struck by the fact that Salvador urgently needed a heart operation. He is waiting for a donor. Doctors think without a heart transplant he cannot live for more than a year. Before the contest, the singer has undergone hernia operation. Nevertheless, Salvador is always smiling and living a full life. He sees nothing outstanding in his victory. He rejoices that Europe appreciated and voted for the song, and not a spectacular show. The singer admitted that he has never wished to become popular, he just writes music that he likes. By the way, Portugal won the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time in its 49-year participation in the contest. The best result before that was the 6th place back in 1996.

Sobral has ironically stated that it was difficult for him to understand the results of the voting. "I did not understand the voting. It's very difficult to understand," he said. At the same time, the singer noted that he did not consider himself a new hero of his country. "I believe that the real hero is Ronaldo," joked the Portuguese singer. He recognizes the importance of his victory, as he was performing for a humanitarian mission in support of the refugees in Europe. "I think this is a very big problem for Europe," said Salvador stressing that his idea was not a political mission.

After returning home, the winner of the contest intends to "continue making his music." He plans to go on a creative tour and record an album.

By the way, before being awarded the crystal microphone of the Eurovision, Salvador has received the Marcel Besancon Award. This is a professional award for the participants of the Eurovision, which is awarded in three categories: press recognition, composers recognition (for the best and original composition) and artistic recognition (for the highest artistic achievements as a result of the voting of commentators). The Portuguese singer became the best in the third category. Note that last year this award was given to the Ukrainian singer Jamala on the basis of the voting of the commentators.

Scandals

By the way, Eurovision-2017 turned out to be rich in scandals. And the first of them touched upon Russia, which did not participate in the contest this year. Back in March, the Security Service of Ukraine banned the representative of Russia Yulia Samoilova to enter the territory of Ukraine due to her visit to Crimea in 2015, which is in violation of Ukrainian laws. The European Broadcasting Council (EBU) has attempted to ensure Russia's participation in the contest, in particular, offering a remote broadcast of Samoilova's speech or the replacement of the participant, and also tried to exert pressure on Ukraine to persuade the Ukrainian authorities to allow Samoilova to enter the country. However, these attempts were unsuccessful: the option with the distant participation of the Russian singer was rejected both by Russia and Ukraine, the replacement of the participant by Russia, and the ultimatum demanding that Samoilova be admitted to Kiev were rejected by Ukraine. As a result, the Russian First Channel refused to broadcast the contest, after which the EBU officially confirmed that Russia would not be able to participate in the Eurovision-2017.

And at the beginning of Eurovision, Jamala, who brought the victory to Ukraine last year, was not allowed to walk on the red carpet. Moreover, the chairman of the Ukrainian jury for Eurovision, Yuri Rybchinsky not only was not invited to the red carpet but even on the show itself. Subsequently, he said that he was outraged by the level of corruption during the contest and that the allocated budget would allow holding three more competitions of the same level.

In the final, the correspondent Vitalik Sedyuk, known for his scandalous antics, climbed onto the stage during the performance of Jamal and acted on the stage defiantly.

As for Turkey, the Turkish television company TRT reported in September 2016 that the country would not participate in the 2017 contest. On October 24, 2016, Turkey's refusal to participate in the contest was officially confirmed.