Europe in Belgrade

At the 53^rd contest for the best European song in 2008 held in Belgrade the representative of Russia Dima Bilan won with song Believe.

By Vanja Savić
Photo by Milan Melka

In the history of Eurosong running as from 1956 this was by number of countries that participated, the audience in the Belgrade Arena and TV spectators, the most massive and, owing to variety of music genres and a superb organization, perhaps the most successful edition of the Eurovision Song. Three days of contests, on May 20^th, 22^nd and 24^th, were directly watched by about 40 thousand visitors, several millions spectators in Serbia and several hundred millions Europeans in 43 countries via TV. Also owing to live broadcasting Eurosong watched spectators from America and Australia.

- We thank to the host, the Radio Television Serbia, to Belgrade and Serbia for their warm welcome and hospitality – said Executive Supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest and the representative of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Svante Stockselius, opening the greatest music spectacle in Europe, organized for the first time in the Serbian capital.

Warming up for the Eurovision final in Belgrade began with semifinals. In the Belgrade Arena, before the stage symbolizing the city at the confluence of two rivers, the Eurosong first semifinal held on May 20^th opened the children’s choir Kolibri singing a hymn to Belgrade, the trumpeters, the Kolo ensemble and hosts Jovana Stanković and Željko Joksimović. After the competition, the best Serbian tennis player Novak Đoković announced the beginning of a 15-minute voting. The audience had the opportunity to hear the Serbian ethno-musician Slobodan Trkulja and then both the audience and jury gave their votes to 19 contestants from the first semifinals and Greece, Romania, B&H, Finland, Russia, Israel, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Poland and Norway entered the final.

The second semifinals began with an opera aria and continued with the tamburitza players, the string quintet and the traditional Serbian dances after which hosts announced the next 19 contestants. By their songs, this group of contestants of the Belgrade Eurosong second semifinal proved to be musically more diverse than the previous one. The voting opened the first winner of the Eurovision Song Contest, the Swiss singer Lys Assia, and then another ten finalists were voted: Ukraine, Croatia, Albania, Island, Georgia, Denmark, Sweden, Latvia, Turkey and Portugal.

Although during these May days the atmosphere of a great spectacle could be felt in the city streets owing to a great number of foreigners, journalists and fans, the true Eurovision fever in the downtown Belgrade reached its culmination on May 24^th, the day of final contest. Before the City Hall more than ten thousand people followed the contest for the best song of Europe on a huge video bean. From that place, Serbia send directly into TV program its votes to hosts in the Belgrade Arena, where 25 contestants were singing that evening. Besides the winners of semifinals, in the final evening sang the Serbian representative Jelena Tomašević and the representatives of four other countries, the direct finalists: Great Britain, France, Germany and Spain.

The final evening opened the last year’s winner from Helsinki Marija Šerifović by song Molitva/Prayer/ in its across Europe known techno version. Besides the singers that evening on the stage was also Goran Bregović with his orchestra and the voting was announced, by having thrown basketball into the audience, the famed Serbian basketball player Vlade Divac. In the strong competition, because it seemed that at the Belgrade Eurosong there were hardly any bad song, the winner was the representative of Russia, Dima Bilan with his song Believe for which music and text he wrote with Jim Beanz. Dima scored 272 votes. This was the eleventh time that Russia competed for the best European song and the second time that this singer, also very popular outside his country, performed at the Eurosong. Dima was second in Athens in 2006 and in Belgrade he won together with Evgeni Plushchenko, the Olympic, World and European ice skating champion and Edwin Marton, the Hungarian composer and violinist who has been working long with the Russian ice skater.

Belgrade Eurovision Song ended with the fireworks above the Belgrade rivers and the performance of winner Dima Belan who ensured to Moscow the next organization of the 54^th Eurosong Contest.

The Eurovision Trophy   The Belgrade Eurosong Contest will be also remembered for the new Eurosong Trophy for the winner. The glass-made trophy in the shape of classic microphone as used at the first Eurovision Song Contest held in the Swiss city Lugano will remain in the lasting possession of Dima Bilan and all future winners.

Representative of Serbia   The representative of this year’s host of the Eurovision Song, Serbia, was a 25-year old Jelena Tomašević with song Oro, for which text wrote Dejan Ivanović and music Željko Joksimović, this year in the role of host at the Eurosong Contest. Jelena Tomašević has been singing since she was eight years old and has participated at numerous music festivals. At her second performance at Beovision 2005, she came second. At this year’s Eurosong she performed with one of the most celebrated Serbian ethno-musician, the flutist Bora Dugić, and came sixth.

Jean Paul Gautier   On May 24th, in the role of the French TV reporter from Eurovision, Belgrade visited one of the greatest fashion designers Jean Paul Gautier. Having visited the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade he expressed his fascination with beauty of the Serbian traditional folk costumes.