Eurovision is here! Delegations have been arriving in Basel in the last few days and rehearsals started on May 3. After closing the first rehearsals to the press in 2022, the EBU has now done away with TikTok videoclips. They will instead release sets of three photographs a day after each rehearsal, as well as description of the proceedings on their official channels. As such, today, we cover yesterday’s rehearsals, and continue with Croatia, the seventh rehearsal of the day, with “Poison Cake”.
🇭🇷 Croatia – Marko Bošnjak – First Rehearsal
The following pictures have been published by the official Eurovision accounts. (Source: Alma Bengtsson, Corinne Cumming / EBU)
What happened on stage?
This description is sourced from indications given by the official Eurovision Reddit account.
- As announced by Marko in numerous interviews, the entire staging concept has been reworked and revamped
- Marko himself has a new outfit: a cape with fur around his shoulders, under which he wears a white top with dark, brown and purple threads embroidered on it. It has been described as “Tudorian” by some observers.
- He is accompanied by four dancers, wearing white and blue outfits with frills and ribbons
- The performance has left the kitchen in Croatia but there is a memorable prop on the main stage: a grey cauldron, around which Marko and his dancers will perform for the first verse and chorus
- They then head to the frame stage for the second half of the song, where Marko takes off his cape to reveal an outfit matching his dancers
- The light bars are lowered to cross eachother in a very disorganised way, and the Eurovision live blogger Heidi considered that the configuration creates “a more intimate space” with dramatic lightning
- The atmosphere is also made more “witchy” through the use of a low fog on the stage floor during the opening of the performance
- The LED screens will show “red and green storm clouds and flammes”
- In terms of pyrotechnics, fire and jets are used on the front stage during the final two choruses, with the final section having smoke jets mirrored on the LED wall
The stage directors for this performance are Helena Janjušević and Kreša.
Stay tuned for further coverage today, with the rehearsals of yesterday, and for our live coverage on the ground starting on May 10, which will include (among other things) the full dress rehearsals and the live shows, live from Basel!
