The biggest pop music competition in the world commenced with the first semifinal on Tuesday night, seeing 10 out of 17 countries earn their place in the final — including the Ukrainian entry, widely expected to finish on top of the podium.
Lithuania, Switzerland, Armenia, Norway, Moldova, Iceland, Greece, Portugal, and the Netherlands also made the cut.
They are to compete with another 10 that will get selected on Thursday and the “big five” who qualify for the final automatically — France, Italy, Great Britain, Spain, and Germany — for the big prize of the continent’s best on Saturday.
War and covid go unmentioned, yet Ukraine shines
The first elimination test of the event, held this year in Turin, offered a welcome respite for the war-torn old continent, and the theme of the evening dubbed “Sound of Beauty” saw a modern-day Leonardo Da Vinci create a drone that took flight across Italy, introducing the 17 competitors as they appeared on stage.
The hosts — Italian singer Laura Pausini, comedian and TV presenter Alessandro Cattelan and British-Lebanese pop star Mika — did their best to keep the audiences across Europe immersed in the almost-three-hour programme.
The recent crises, such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, were either left unmentioned or casually brought up as the three hugged on stage with pandemic measures mostly relaxed.
Similarly, there were no mentions of the war in Ukraine, apart from a few contestants such as Lithuania briefly flashing a Ukrainian flag backstage.
However, all eyes were on the Ukrainian folk-rap group Kalush Orchestra who remain favourites to win ahead of Italian duo Mahmood and Blanco, Britain’s Sam Ryder and Sweden’s Cornelia Jakobs, with the rap lullaby “Stefania” written before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The band, which was given special permission by the Kyiv government to perform at the competition, stole the show, receiving a standing ovation mid-way and long applause afterwards as the group’s singer Oleh Psiuk thanked the audience for supporting Ukraine.
The band was chosen as a replacement for the winner of the national final, Alina Pash, after she withdrew following a dispute over her visit to the Russian-occupied Crimea in 2015.
If Kalush Orchestra were to win on Saturday, it would be Ukraine’s third victory after it won in 2004 and 2016.
Ruslana’s “Wild Dances” won the first title for Ukraine, while the second victory came two years after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula — with Jamala and the song “1944”, a song about Stalin’s deportation of Tatars, making the country the first in Eastern Europe to win the contest twice.
