We are LIVE from Vienna and the Stadthalle for the first dress rehearsal of the firstond semi-final, which is only open to the press.
Once the rehearsal start, we will be updating this page with our first reactions to the FULL performances of the following entries:
🇲🇩 Moldova – “Viva Moldova!” 🇸🇪 Sweden – “My System” 🇭🇷 Croatia – “Andromeda” 🇬🇷 Greece – “Ferto” 🇵🇹 Portugal – “Rosa” 🇬🇪 Georgia – “On Replay”
Automatic qualifier – 🇮🇹 Italy – “Per Sempre Si” 🇫🇮 Finland – “Liekinheitin” 🇲🇪 Montenegro – “Nova Zora” 🇪🇪 Estonia – “Too Epic To Be True” 🇮🇱 Israel – “Michelle”
Automatic qualifier – 🇩🇪 Germany – “Fire” 🇧🇪 Belgium – “Dancing on the Ice” 🇱🇹 Lithuania – “Sólo quiero más” 🇸🇲 San Marino – “Superstar” 🇵🇱 Poland – “Pray” 🇷🇸 Serbia – “Kraj Mene” Opening and introduction act
The “Te Deum” rings and the “Life of Toni” videoclip is played as an introduction to the show. While this shows, people walk to stand on the stage : several on the “satellite stage”, and several on both sides of the stairs going to the Green Room.
The man playing Toni then sits a piano and sings the English then French lyrics of “L’amour est bleu” by Vicky Leandros (Luxembourg 1967), as Vicky Leandros appears, introduced by a voice, and starts Walking down the catwalk, where the people we previously mentionned have formed a corridor for her. It all ends with a sparkly shower effect and the giant “70” logo on the main screen.
The hosts then appear on stage, and start their regular introduction, obviously mentionning the 70th anniversary of the contest.
The graphics of the voting are… very powerpoint-y, with rounded corners instead of square/straight angles, both on the left with the flags, and the right with the voting Numbers.
🇲🇩 Moldova – Satoshi – “Viva Moldova!”
The postcard is very good: Satoshi reads a postcard and “falls” into the landscape, which in his case is the Prater area. It’s very “dreamlike”, and he wakes up at the end.
The performance is bombastic, as expected. Shoutout to the cute “lyrics with legs and feet” after the first chorus.
The backing singers’ feed seems to be more balanced than in the rehearsal footage.
Aliona Moon is back in a giant dress for her “singing bridge”, an hommage to her previous Eurovision participation! Huge cheers all over the place in the arena!
🇸🇪 Sweden – Felicia– “My System”
There’s a little delay for the start of the performance.
Not much to say about Sweden, as it does look very Melodifestivalen-like (surprise, right?). The bass is at just the right level, and the party keeps going in the Stadthalle. The giant Felicia does not appear on the main screen until it’s fully appeared on the TV screens though.
🇭🇷 Croatia – LELEK – “Andromeda”
The atmosphere is very dark and red, and the LED screen shows a sort of “tear in a surface” made of lights, that turns slowly into the tattoo used by the girls on their body. For the first half of the song, Inka (in white) stands on a sort of higher podium, while the four other girls are on the actual floor.
The last chorus gets a lot of pyros.
The performance ends with Inka on the catwalk, under a spotlight, looking up in a very “salvation” pose.
🇬🇷 Greece – Akylas – “Ferto”
SPOILER ALERT : The tunnel of mirror Akylas walks into is NOT special effects, it’s an actual prop, into which he walks.
He then plays some fake contrabass/cello, takes his scooter to the catwalk as stage hands bring a special prop in. It’s like three rooms arranged in across, and he walks from one to the other during performance, with the camera Following him from outside.
He gets on top of it for the emotional section, then slides down the pole on its left to sing in a third room, and concludes the song on the catwalk.
🇵🇹 Portugal – Bandidos do Cante – “Rosa”
The boys start on the satellite stage, on the right-side (if you’re looking at the stage from the front, the side that does not go up). They remain on both sides of this satellite stage and on the catwalk for most of the song, as the LED screens slowly draw blooming roses on the main stage. They join it towards the end, as the violin solo is performed.
This is quite beautiful after the epicness of the first four acts.
After this, we get a small break with Michael adressing the crowd, but not an ad break
🇬🇪 Georgia – Bzikebi – “On Replay”
This performance is full of lasers, probably more than Sweden. The LED screens do show the Cyborgs, but also a giant tower-like figure, with threads plugged into it, during most of the performance. There’s also a nice steadycam shot with the three members of Bzikebi back-to-back in a triangle.
They join the catwalk/satellite stage for the bridge, but return to the main one for the final section.
The vocals are not very good though, and this is the first time we’ve had to say that so far in the show.
Commercial break – Fans and messages
A small video plays with small messages from fans from across Europe, but also Eurovision alumni (Miriana Conte, Sissal, Eleni Foureira, Victoria) as well as Will Ferrell!
We then return to Victoria in the arena, introducing the “Big Four” and Italy.
🇮🇹 Italy – Sal da Vinci – “Per Sempre Sì”
When the rehearsals notes said the groom was choosing his outfit for the wedding, they meant he’s being dressed by his dancers, and starts only wearing shoes and underwear (and doing a flip (or backflip?) in this limited outfit!).
The bride arrives on the catwalk, kisses the groom (for real!) and her gown is taken off to form an Italian flag. She falls on the ground when it happens, but her groom helps her back up and dance with her until the end.
Very entertaining, the crowd will love this.
🇫🇮 Finland – Linda Lampenius & Pete Parkonnen – “Liekinheitin”
There’s a little delay at the beginning for the stage to be fully ready, so Victoria starts giving us trivia on Finland, but it soon starts.
We can confirm that the violin is being played live, and in the arena, it does feel different, in a good way.
The fake orchestra goes up in flame, and then so does the confessionnal. We assist to the run-up of Pete, then Linda. A very explosive end then, as usual.
After the act, a strong Eurovision fan next to me reacts: “I don’t know.” A “regular” journalist who’d just seen it on screen once before says “I like it more now”. Not much is new, but I Believe Finland has the strongest chance for now.
🇲🇪 Montenegro – Tamra Živković – “Nova Zora”
While Albania may avoid the red colour this year, Monténégro does not: this is very “black and red”, with read lights everywhere, until the third act when it turns into a thundery blue (reminding us of the thunderstorms from earlier today here in Vienna).
At the end of the performance, a sun rises on the LED screen, as a “Nova Zora”, but it flicks between black and bright, normal colours and negative, on the bit.
Vocally good but we sometimes hear more whispers from Tamra than the full sentence, but it’s very minimal.
🇪🇪 Estonia – Vanilla Ninja – “Too Epic to Be True”
The stage is also quite red for our returning 2005 artists, during the choruses at least. They remain on the main stage for most of the performance, with the exception of the bridge where Lenna goes on the catwalk, while Piret and Kerli walk up to the drums and encourage the crowd to clap along. I would personally have them do this from the catwalk or the satellite stage.
The vocals were a bit off at the beginning, but it got better. But it does not feel elevated enough to qualify.
🇮🇱 Israel – Noam Bettan – “Michelle”
As the stage takes more time to setup, Victoria needs to add trivia about the history and legacy of Israel at the contest from the Green Room. This could sound a bit off-key in the actual show.
🇩🇪 Germany – Sarah Engels – “Fire”
Sarah begins on her prop, to a piano version of the song, but it accelarates after the “I could go out with all of your… friends!” line, and is back to the banger song in time for the chorus.
Sarah falls down from the prop, back-first (as in, not head first), diving into her dancers who receive her very well and put her back up. They then continue the performance on the stage, just in front of the catwalk, surrounder by pyros (which really heat up the atmosphere).
We’re then offered a good old dance-break, very “Fuego/Slomo/Unicorn”-like, and an incendiary conclusion!
Commercial break – Professor Eurovision
We now see a small video of a woman acting as a “Professor Eurovision” in a small uni auditorium, and giving quite a good answer on “Who got zero points the most time”. Fans will love this, as she explains that few points were given in the early years so that we should only start counting in the 70’s, giving other analysis (like which language got the most “nul points”: German), that Austria got the most 0 points and were the first to get no points when hosting, etc.
🇧🇪 Belgium – Essyla – “Dancing on the Ice”
The wind machine used at the beginning is basically a leaf blowers, which is quite noisy in the arena (but it’s probably not heard on the actual footage). Essyla starts on the catwalk, facing the main stage. She then joins it, and returns to the catwalk for the end, which has been cleaned of the snow of the introduction during the performance.
Let’s answer the main question: the vocals are good, slightly off at the very beginning (when she gets wind in her face), but it gets better very fast.
🇱🇹 Lithuania – Lion Ceccah – “Sólo Quiero Más”
The stage takes far more time than the postcard allows to prepare. Michael fills up the blank by saying… I don’t even understand what he’s saying. But Victoria joins him in the Green Room and they start walking to the delegations, talking with “Sweden”, then to “Moldova”.
They will likely have to do this later, considering the difficulties with Lithuania’s setup, which seems to come from the large costume Lion Ceccah is wearing.
The Green Room is incredible, by the way : very large, very cosy, and all the “booths” are already there (unlike some Green Rooms which only have 15-16 set up for the semi-finals, and get bigger for the Final). After what’s been more than 3 minute, we see Lion Ceccah walk up the stage and enter his larger costume, and it seems we’re ready to start.
The performance itself
It’s very close to the national selection performance, with the added black and white section. But there are some changes, especially at the end : very good sliding camera shots, a great walk up the catwalk for the end, and a giant “Lion Ceccah of light” on the LED screen. Great applause at the end!
🇸🇲 San Marino – Senhit feat. Boy George – “Superstar”
The props on the side in the pictures actuallty form a corridor when joined together at the beginning of the song, a bit like what Greece uses earlier in the show. Senhit walks through it before they separate during the first chorus.
We get a Senhit lift-up by her dancers at the beginning of the second chorus, as the second prop remains “closed” for most of th eperformance. It only opens as Boy George starts singing, sitting on a sort of throne inside, and being announced by Senhit.
Then comes the moment we saw in the rehearsal video, with Senhit, Boy George and the dancers walking down the catwalk for the final section.
🇵🇱 Poland – ALICJA – “Pray”
Although the main prop of Poland (which is more inclined than it appeared in the photo) is set up in time, Michael still needs to give us some trivia on the country, but it lasts only about 30 seconds.
ALICJA starts on the catwalk, with a lot of front shots, and a lot of spotlights give depth to these shots. She then turns around and slowly joins the main stage, where her dancers first appear as heads and hands above the edge of the prop, until they climb ladders from behind it and get in, where they walk up, slide down, etc.
It’s vocally great save for some off moments during the rap section, but if she delivers is as she did the rest of the song tonigh, she should secure a high score from the juries.
🇷🇸 Serbia – Lavina – “Kraj Mene”
Luka begins on the catwalk, on the floor, standing up with a steadycam operator facing him. He then joins the main stage, and the rest of the performance.
The rest is close in style to what happened in PZE, but on a very grand scale. The staging is also very focused on the atmosphere and light, as the screens showing the TV feed are mostly off during the performance to make sure the backdrops remain dark.
The pyros at the end heat the atmosphere up, and the sword-mic get on fire too, as expected.
SURPRISE : Germany performs again, for some reason!
🇩🇪 Germany – stand-in rerun
It’s actually a stand-in doing playback (who looks like… Kaleen!) and not Sarah Engels performing, without dancers. It seems to be mainly redone for the production crew, although there is no use of the pyros during the performance, and no dancers are there. Mystery, mystery…
It may be that they have planned a “re-run” of a performance just in case to see if they can react to such a scenario.
In previous years, journalists had to leave after the last performance, so we may not be able to describe the interval acts.
RECAP OF THE SONGS
We are allowed to watch the recap at least, as people put some props on stage for the interval acts. Here are the highlights according to us:
Moldova uses the tall Aliona Moon moment for it Greece has Akylas sliding down his prop as the emotional part ends Finland obviously uses the shot orbiting the flaming confessional San Marino obviously has Boy George in the shot Poland gets the best vocal moment out
We are now asked to leave but will report later tonight with the Press Poll, a live-tweeting on X and Bluesky of the jury show, and the Audience Poll.
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