The Maltese may not have had the best Eurovision results in the last two years, but now they’re breaking out the ‘Vodka’.
The Go Malta Song for Europe Festival took place last week, over two nights. The winner, Morena, was far from unexpected. A total of 17 songs made it to the semi final which took place on the 24th of January. Among them were three former Maltese participants. Mary Spiteri (1992) had two songs and Moira & Chris (1994) had just the one. Unfortunately for them the jury decided that there was no place in the final for their songs. The line up for the final was:
01. Eleanor Cassar, Give me a chance
02. Claudia Faniello, Caravaggio (2nd)
03. Petra Zammit, Streetcar of desire
04. Morena, Casanova
05. Klinsmann Coleiro, Go
06. Claudia Faniello, Sunrise (3rd)
07. Rosman Pace, Love is just the way
08. Morena, Vodka (1st)
On Saturday 26th January these songs battled it out to become the 21st Maltese entry to the Eurovision Song Contest. The result was made of of 20% from the jury and 80% from the televoters. Both Morena and Claudia Faniello had two songs in the final. As the results were announced Claudia Faniello was overcome with tears, they may not have been tears of happiness though. Given the result, some may say that Claudia’s two songs split the vote for her and thus caused her to lose the final. Claudia is the sister of two time Maltese ESC representative Fabrizio. This was only her second year competing in MSFE, but many see her as the next Olivia Lewis (competing in the festival for 11 consecutive years until she won it in 2007). It has to be said though that press and public reaction to the winner in Malta was highly favourable. Little information about Morena is available. We have already seen the young songstress on the MSFE stage once before. She sang the song ‘Time’ with Paul Giordimaina in 2006. She also won the 2007 Malta International TV Song Festival with the song ‘Boghod Mill-Ghajn…Boghod Mill-Qalb’. I’m sure that we’ll learn more and more about this young lady in the run up to the 2008 contest, but for now that’s all we know.
Links
Malta Song for Europe
Morena’s Wikipedia page
In my view
Vodka is a 50/50 entry. It may do well, but it has equal chances of a total flop. Many people were sure of Malta’s success before the competition last year and that didn’t quite go to plan. Caravaggio may well have suffered the same fate if it had been picked, but now we’ll never know.
The opinion expressed in "In my view" are those of the author and are not necessarily the one of EuroVisionary.com.
