We are LIVE from Vienna and the Stadthalle for the first dress rehearsal of the second 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:
- 🇧🇬 Bulgaria – Dara – “Bangaranga”
- 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan – JIVA – “Just Go”
- 🇷🇴 Romania – Alexandra Căpitănescu – “Choke Me”
- 🇱🇺 Luxembourg – Eva Marija – “Mother Nature”
- 🇨🇿 Czechia – Daniel Zizka – “Crossroads”
Automatic qualifier – 🇫🇷 France – Monroe – “Regarde” - 🇦🇲 Armenia – Simón – “Paloma Rumba”
- 🇨🇭 Switzerland – Veronica Fusaro – “Alice”
- 🇨🇾 Cyprus – Antigoni – “Jalla”
Automatic qualifier – 🇦🇹 Austria – COSMÓ – “Tanzschein” - 🇱🇻 Latvia – Atvara – “Ēnā”
- 🇩🇰 Denmark – Søren Torpegaard Lund – “Før vi går hjem”
- 🇦🇺 Australia – Delta Goodrem – “Eclipse”
- 🇺🇦 Ukraine – LELÉKA – “Ridnym”
Automatic qualifier – 🇬🇧 United Kingdom – LOOK MOM NO COMPUTER – “Eins, Zwei, Drei” - 🇦🇱 Albania – Alis – “Nân”
- 🇲🇹 Malta – AIDAN – “Bella”
- 🇳🇴 Norway – JONAS LOVV – “Ya Ya Ya”
Opening and introduction act – Wasted Love goes wrong
We begin with a small video recap of the first semi-final’s best moments (well, mainly from the interval acts, not the actual songs), then a short reminder of last year’s victory. As this is broadcast on the main screen, JJ’s boat is put on the main stage, and the song starts being played instrumentally.
But it’s not JJ singing it, it’s our host Michael, trying to reproduce the staging, with much difficulties, along with Victoria. It’s basically a parody of everything that could go wrong (being hit by the mast, the props burning, etc.). We get a good laugh! But all of this is pre-filmed.
They do appear on stage, extracting themselves from the shipwreck of JJ’s prop, and introducing the show (and I’m pretty sure Michael swore in French at some point in his speech: surely he went off-script?). He actually thanks his mum for forcing him to learn French: “You always said it would be useful one day”, and this is the day.
🇧🇬 Bulgaria – Dara – “Bangaranga”
A large prop is put in place, walls of a house or office, and funnily enough from our viewpoint we can see the marking lights used by the stage hands to know where to put the Walls, and JJ’s boat fits perfectly inside.
DARA begins sitting on a chair, with her dancers behind her, then joining her on chairs next to her. It’s mainly filmed from one camera, which is actually “locked” with the walls. At some point, the whole prop moves around, the camera follows it, but DARA and her crew don’t move so it looks like they’re moving. I’m curious to see the whole effect on the actual screen.
Huge cheers here in the press centre, this was quite the opener!
🇦🇿 Azerbaijan – JIVA – “Just Go”
JIVA begins at the centre of the stage, in front of large drapes/curtains, with more “textiles” on the LED screen too. We also see some of the lyrics (like “our love would never die”) written on it, as well as old film effects and images of her former lover. He joins her on stage for the end, but she rejects him and walks down the catwalk for the final section.
Not much more to say I’m afraid, the rehearsal notes were very exhaustive.
🇷🇴 Romania – Alexandra Căpitănescu – “Choke Me”
Alexandra begins on the catwalk, just before the satellite stage, already bound to her guitarists by the light threads. The camera shots also show the white, ghostly figure, “singing along”.
As the first chorus ends, Alexandra tries to escape her guitarists, and ends up cutting the bonds! She then slowly joins the main stage, and replaces the white figure on a small podium in the centre.
Once the figure’s gone, Alexandra takes the centre stage, finally sings facing the crowd (she was almost always facing away from it for the rest of the performance), and the atmosphere turns from white to red, with pyros finally taking over. Huge cheers again here!
🇱🇺 Luxembourg – Eva Marija – “Mother Nature”
The song begins with Eva Marija on the catwalk, her mic stand being adorned by a small tree. Small CGI effects develop above her, and continue during the song, in addition to beautiful light elements on the LED floor. The “1944” references are still there, with the idea of nature’s Energy flowing from and towards Eva on the floor.
She joins the main stage by the end of the song, finding her mic stand again, doing her violin solo, and dancing like a sort of woods fairy on stage.
🇨🇿 Czechia – Daniel Zizka – “Crossroads”
Daniel begins surrounded by mirrors, and remains so for most of the performance, but the mirrors are moved around him during the performance. The second verse and chorsus happen as he’s locked incide a circle of mirrors, but it seems cameras remain hidden (it is difficult to say as the screen version we see is a bit limited).
The vocals are absolutely perfect, and the final section is something truly special. This is the best thing we have seen so far this year, including any staging from the first semi-final. The cheers start for his big note, and erupt again as the song ends, made slightly longer by a heartbeat effect after the music stops.
🇫🇷 France – Monroe – “Regarde !”
Monroe begins on a circular podium, alone on stage, but is joind by her dancers before the first chorus, after which they walk up the catwalk, and end up joining a second circular podium juist in front of where the catwalk split in two to join the Green Room.
Most of the camera work is indeed done by steadycam. The staging relies on smoke, dancing and her stunning vocals.
After Czechia, though, this feels too polished, too clean, too operatic. “Crossroads” felt like a special moment, “Regarde !” not as much, sadly.
Short break – Professor Eurovision
After a very well-balanced answer on nul points in the first semi-final, the professor answers the question “What is it with all the LGBTQ people at Eurovision, have the gays taken over?”. We loved her answer here, as she retraces the history of queer artists at Eurovision, and more.
This may not really be a commercial break as it’s mainly there to give the crew more time to set up Armenia’s prop.
🇦🇲 Armenia – Simón – “Paloma Rumba”
The whole performance begins inside the elevator prop, as we saw from the rehearsal footage. The prop is soon taken off stage, though, with file boxes being prepared on the side. Some of them are brought in front of the stage, during one of the “Paloma Rumba!” section, and SIMÓN and his dancers just run through them, destroying a whole wall, before concluding the act on the catwalk.
Big cheers here, this has all the right energy!
🇨🇭 Switzerland – Veronica Fusaro – “Alice”
Veronica begins alone on stage, her mic exteding into a white rope. A thin line of light on the LED screen makes it look like it’s the rope extended, but it multiplies and becomes like a music graphs going wild with the music.
She’s joined by dancers after the first chorus, surrounding her, and gets closer to the catwalk to allow the stage hands to put the prop of red rope in place, which we saw on rehearsal pictures before.
She leaves it and gets surrounded by her dancers, who attach the ropes to her back and give her her guitar for the final section. She manages to fall on her knees on the catwalk for an emotional finale.
The vocals were good, but we are not completely convinced by the performance as a whole
🇨🇾 Cyprus – Antigoni – “Jalla”
Cyprus takes a bit more time to be set up: we’ve had it before today but the host did not need to take over. This time Michael does, with a small reference to “Fuego”, before it finally is ready to begin.
Antigoni begins on her giant table prop, under which her dancers are hiding, before they join her on it for the first chorus. They actually go on and off the table several times during the performance. The table also had a small central line of lights which change colours during the song.
She gets a chair to sit on for the second chorus, but it’s quickly taken away. After lying on her back on the table for a nice shot from the ceiling, Antigoni leaves her prop and walk down the catwalk with her dancers, surrounding by pyros, with two “bars of fire” set at the jonction between it and the satellite stage (like those used by Germany).
🇦🇹 Austria – COSMÓ – “Tanzschein”
There is a little introduction by Michael, to both remind the audience that Austria is an automatic qualifier, but also to allow the stage hands more time to take Cyprus’ propr away and install what’s needed for Austria (including the climbing grids which need to be attached to sections of the ceiling and then pulled up).
Michael gives some anecdote about Austria at Eurovision, then goes chatting with the (empty) Green Room. In these rehearsals, it’s actually members of the production crew who populate the room and act like the semi-finalists if needed. Right now an Austrian member of staff is talking about how he likes his coffee. We then meet someone from the digital team of Finland’s delegation, who’s seemingly chilling at the rehearsal as her country waits for the Grand Final
The performance itself
COSMÓ begins lying on the floor with four of his dancers around him. The floor graphics are very “pop-art” and it looks like he’s walking inside this. He does stand up, and starts dancing!
The main screen shows some weird hybridation of animals but that’s quite funny. COSMÓ really enjoys what he’s doing, and joins Sandro on the satellite stage before the final chorus, before dancing away on his own at the end, before the rest of his animal-headed crew joins him.
This is efficient now, but it will clearly have the best impact at the final, in the final slot.
🇱🇻 Latvia – Atvara – “Ēnā”
There’s once again a bit of fake interviewing in the green room, but things are ready much quicker this time and Atvara can begin her performance.
With most of the arena in the dark, we notice Delta walk around the stage as “Ēnā” begins. A bit weird since Denmark still has to perform.
As expected, this is mainly a re-use of the Supernova staging, including the CGIs. There’s a few classic but good uses of the LED screen to create a moving backdrop behind Atvara, with great camera shots creating big or small-scale effects around her.
🇩🇰 Denmark – Søren Torpegaard Lund – “Før vi går hjem”
The bass is very strong here, and makes this sound like a revamp of the song. The performance is as we expect, with added echoes at some points, and some more “bass-heavy” backing vocals.
Vocally, this was very good, and the final big note is hit without any issue whatsoever. The only mishaps was that he had not completed his little jump into the box in time to be on cue, but this was very short and the backing vocals hid it well.
Huge cheers from the press and delegations in the arena! Around me, journalists think its one of the best performances so far.
Commercial break – Discovering the stage
The hosts open the new commercial break by introducing a video of the artists discovering the stage for the first time, which we then see, with an instrumental version of “Euphoria” as soundtrack. This gives the stage hands more time to set up Australia, but they still need a bit more time after the postcard.
Victoria actually gets back on camera from the Green Room and remind us of Australia’s debut in Vienna 2015. She then passes the mic to Emily Busvine, the Green Room host, who interviews “Bulgaria”.
🇦🇺 Australia – Delta Goodrem – “Eclipse”
For some reason there’s a cameraman next to us in the seats, so perhaps there’ll be some shots from the crowd?
For now, the performance begins with a shot of the harp being played, with Deltra standing on the main stage until the end of the first chorus, surrounded by smoke. She then walks up the catwalk to reach a golden piano, and plays on it during the chorus, and obviously plays part of the piano break on it.
She then walks up on the piano, and as the last chorus concludes, the part where she’s standing rises like a pillar and she rises in the air for the climax. It’s only for a few seconds, but it works wonders and everyone here is very impressed!
🇺🇦 Ukraine – LELÉKA – “Ridnym”
The song begins in darkness, with just a white “track” on the floor and LELÉKA on it. Quickly into the performance, two giant drapes are unfolded from the ceiling, but one of them remains stuck. They are then detached, so both fall.
The atmosphere for the high note is quite angelic, with four drapes being unfolded from the ceiling. There is a small issue again though, as one of them does not detach completely and remains attached when the other three falls after the high note.
The singer remains unphased though (I’m not even sure she saw it) and serves us great vocals, despite a little error as the high note starts, quickly corrected. Huge applause again.
🇬🇧 United Kingdom – LOOK MOM NO COMPUTER – “Eins, Zwei, Drei”
We’re getting a little “Tanzchein” tutorial from the Green Room with a stand-in COSMÓ, giving enough times for the stage hands to put the staggering number of 12 desks on stage, occupying all the space on the main section. But at least everything is ready by the end of the postcard.
The atmosphere is quite dark at the beginning, with Sam starting at the top-left desk, all bored, and joining a desk at the centre. He grabs the “flat part” and turns it around to reveal one of his consoles. The rest of the desks are also moved to turn into the equipment we saw in the videoclip.
There’s some audience interaction : “When I say Eins, Zwei, you say Drei!” or “When I sayy Peppe-, you say -roni”, and the end is slightly revamped for the live. Although the whole thing is full of energy, the reception by the press is extremely weak.
🇦🇱 Albania – Alis – “Nân”
Albania has found a way to circumvent the “6-person-limit” by putting a lot of people on the main screen, with some very nice camera shots to highlight them. After the first chorus, Alis stands in the middle of a giant clock that’s accelerating, which is quite a stunning imagery.
His mother joins him on stage before the last chorus, and we’re also offered a shot of Alis with angel wings on the LED backdrop. He sings the final words close to his mother, but she leaves before the last lines, putting even more emotion in the moment.
🇲🇹 Malta – AIDAN – “Bella”
There’s a little extra time for everything to be perfectly set up, but it’s only for a few seconds.
AIDAN stands inside his zoetrope prop (the “Zoeprop”?), which is working wonderfully: it’s like a two-way mirror, so even when the arches are acting as screens inside the prop, we can see through them from the outside: this way, the public does not miss out on most of the performance.
There’s no rose petals in this rehearsal, only some on the inner screens of the Zoeprop but no real ones.
Most of the performance was on the camera shots though, and we only saw a few of these. So stay tuned for tonight’s coverage for more on that!
🇳🇴 Norway – JONAS LOVV – “Ya Ya Ya”
Time for some “not-too-sexy” Norwegian action, if TV2 is to be believed! And we can confirm that, from what we saw, the “bang-bang” section has been toned down.
This is mostly Jonas on his red platform, with his musicians on it, although he leaves the plateform to get on the main stage at some point, then runs on the catwalk for the break, and concludes the song there, entertaining the crowd, between sparkles effects.
We will soon be asked to leave the arena but may have time to report on the recap.
Our highlights from the recap (mainly those that are not what we’ve already seen in rehearsal footage):
- Romania chooses the moment where Alexandra casts away the white figure
- Czechia shows the final “Crossroads” singing, when the mirrors open around Daniel
- Switzerland has Veronica playing the guitar
- Denmark shows the beginning of the final chorus, in front of the box
- Australia chooses the moment when Delta rises up
We are now leaving the arena, but stay tuned for our next updates:
- the results of the press poll of this first dress rehearsal
- our live coverage of the jury show on X and Bluesky
- the results of the audience poll tonight, atfer the jury show
