DORA 1999 REVIEW

I've always been willing to maintain that the DORA is as good as the ESC itself, and have come out with this opinion at the slightest opportunity without ever having seen a DORA all the way through, so it was with substantial anticipation that I sat down to watch this year's one (only two months late...). 

Certainly it's a rival to the ESC when it comes to the set-pieces: the show began with a light show and a  dance troupe wearing strange headdresses (the DORA's logo is a head in one of these headdresses) who looked rather like penguins, and then some page boys dancing around a woman in white and taking the DORA trophy away from her.  They then held it up as if it was the World Cup, something else Croatia have nearly one.

Our hosts for the night were Oliver Mlakar, a bald man with glasses, and Vlatka Pokoš who looked like one of The Corrs, who first of all introduced a quick retrospective of other DORAs and ESCs past, which seemed mostly to include Abba and Riverdance.  If anyone knows who was the woman in the red dress with short blonde hair, somebody tell me....

With this over the DORA proper began, opened by Teens (14/23), a group all of whose members are between 12 and 14, with 'Miris ljubavi'.  This would have resulted in Croatia's disqualification if they had won, which would have been better than this song representing the country in Jerusalem.  They wore black and white checks.

Luckily Kristina (24/4)'s 'Da zora zna' was a better indication of how the DORA was going to turn out, and was everything a Croatian song needs to be: there was a verse about the dawn and one about waking up, and the song itself was a slow-starting big ballad.   She was accompanied by two ballet dancers, who you saw more than you did Kristina.

Alen Nizetic (16/24), who is running to fat, looks like a young Kevin Keegan, and sings like him too.  'Samo ti' was undoubtedly the worst song of the round, and was followed by Vlatka trying to contrive a link between that title and the romantic 'Samo nebo zna' from Andy (9/19).  The male singer in this group used to belong to Srebrna Krila when they sang 'Mangup' in 1988.  The red-haired flautist, one of the many Croatians evidently inspired by Cher, didn't.

En Face (24/20) attempted 'Kad prestane kiša', a rock-indie song of the kind you can't get away from in Britain.  I reflected their singer looked rather like Ryan Giggs gone wrong, and hoped this wasn't going to be the pattern for the rest of the show.  Luckily Giuliano (6/9), although he wasn't going to win many more beauty-points, reversed the trend with this year's only dance-song, 'Dobro mi došla ljubavi'. The action then cut across to the green room, which was fitted out entirely in white, before returning to the stage when Josip Katalenic (4/22), a young man in a white suit and black shirt, sang the dreary ballad 'San'.

When Nikita (19/8) started singing 'Kraljica noci', things started to look up.   This was exactly the sort of thing you want in a national final, but not in the ESC, from Croatia at any rate.  Apparently she thinks she's like Madonna, but a woman in a pink feather boa walking down a staircase is more likely to call to mind Geri Halliwell.  She was supported by the similarly-dressed trio 'Amadeus', whose vocal range was tested to the full when Nikita suddenly jumped an octave and started singing her scales.  This was the only song to be sung partially in English ('I'm the queen of the night...'), and would certainly not have been forgotten had it gone to Jerusalem, especially if the other dance-opera song, from Estonia, had got there too.  The last verse was delivered at such a high pitch that it would have left Maja Blagdan worried.   Bring on Magazin...

...which they promptly did.  Magazin (5/2)'s 'Kasno je' was a big melancholy ballad delivered by a girl in an evening gown with short slicked-back hair, which is one way to ensure they'd have got my vote, even though lead singer Jelena is actually blonde.  This is what the DORA is for....

The DORA is also for songs like 'Još jednom', from Sanja Lukanovic (18/7), another short-haired blonde with a backing singer who looked like Malina from Romania.   Sanja will look like Dionyssia in a few years if she isn't careful, but for now she's pretty enough.  The unstructured ballad which could have come straight out of Céline Dion's back catalogue took some time to make an impression.  Too much time for the Croatian juries, who only gave her eight points.

Turbo-X (24/18) sound like they ought to give us a dance song, but instead sang the Bryan Adams-type 'Cijeli svijet je izmedju nas', which might have won if it was in Slovenia.  Since this was Croatia, nobody voted for them at all.  They were followed by Goran Karan (3/21), whose 'Nisam te vrijedan' was another male ballad.  Perhaps the most interesting thing that happened throughout the song was the part where the camera wobbled, or the other part where the lighting effects made him look as if he was trapped in the traction beam of an alien spacecraft about to be taken very far away from Zagreb.  If only.

Anything from Branimir Mihaljevic is guaranteed to be strange, and 'Uzalud' by Joy (17/13) was no exception, sounding like a folk song that somebody else had then arranged for a pop band with electric guitars.  The group Mandi (20/16) followed them with 'Lako je reci zbogom', another slow-starting but eventually quite powerful ballad. 

Marina Tomaševic (14/3), who's been around for quite a while, then sang 'Ja sam tvoja zena'.  Deep-voiced Marina looks like Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous, but sings rather better than she would, and certainly has far more stage presence.   This power-ballad was the sort of thing that could have gone on to be a Eurovision winner, despite the lyrics which read 'Ja sam tvoja zena... i ti si moj muz': 'I'm your lady and you are my man,' in fact.  Still, 'The power of love' was as good the first time....

'Još jednom jutro budi se' - 'Morning wakes up once more' - was Another Song About Waking Up, this time from a man, Djani Stipanicev (10/12).  Near the end of the big orchestral ballad the four backing singers, including one with short black hair, started singing on their own; I look forward to their getting rid of him and starting a girlband, which is the one thing we didn't have enough of this year.

You never know quite what to expect from eighteen-year-old Branka Bliznec (24/14).  This was her second DORA appearance, and would turn out to be her second last place too.  If she'd taken the bouncy, upbeat 'Dajte ljubavi' to Scandinavia instead, she could have scored quite well, especially since there's a chance the Icelanders might have taken her for Paul Oscar with all that make-up on.  On the other hand, with Zrinka (11/8), you know exactly what to expect: another big ballad. 'Jednom u zivotu' wasn't as good as her 1995 song 'Srce od zlata', but then again, what would be?  After this Zorana Siljeg (12/6) (with red hair and a powerful voice, and wearing a sleeveless but not particularly well-fitting red catsuit) sang 'Nije te briga', and this catchy, rocky number wouldn't have disgraced Natalie Imbruglia. 

In every song contest there's one song that takes you entirely by surprise, and in the DORA it was the turn of Renata Sabljak (11/1), with 'I kako sada ici dalje?'.   The atmospheric ballad with a strong and extremely singable chorus is exactly the kind of song I like anyway, and for it to be sung by a young girl with short black hair was only a bonus.  This was undoubtedly the best song of the DORA, and may yet prove the best of the year.  I can't remember being so satisfied with a song since 'Se eu te pudesse abracar' finished...

Another contender for the best song of the year was 'Marija Magdalena' from Doris Dragovic (1/5).  Doris has been around since forever, and represented former Yugoslavia with 'Zeljo moja', 'My wish', in 1986.  She got her wish this time, with an eventual landslide victory.  Vlatka tried to contrive a link from this to the biggish ballad 'Mama Marija', written and sung by Mladen Grdovic (7/15), but he was more Tony Wegas than Doris again, and the song was more notable for the reappearance of Djani's backing singer.  She'd also supported Renata, but I'd hardly noticed.....

Minea (10/17) was responsible for the first dance-techno song in any national final, 1995's 'Good boy'.   She's since become more of a ballad singer and the folksy 'U ponoc pozvoni' could equally well have been sung by Magazin.  The DORA was closed by 'Ljubav jedne zene' by the writer of last year's winner, Petar Grašo (2/12).  During the last chorus of this a ballerina ran across the back of the stage, did a pirouette and ran off again.  I presume this was meant to be 'jedna zena', but she still looked as if she'd got lost on her way somewhere else (possibly to Sweden's Melodifestivalen).

This would now have been the time to dial my finger off for Renata Sabljak, if I'd been in Croatia, but as I wasn't I settled down to watch the interval act, which I'd already been forewarned about but still wasn't adequately prepared for.  A man in blue and red introduced what was evidently a Soundmix show for Croatian children with a speech that lasted around five minutes.  I wasn't listening.  Suddenly he said 'Renata Sabljak' and 'Sanja Lukanovic'. Started listening again.

Some girl called Dorotea took the stage and proceeded to murder 'Sveta ljubav', during which time I was more interested in one of her backing singers, a woman in a green dress with short light brown hair who looked like the other Renata.  Dorotea missed at least half of the notes in the second verse.  I was starting to think even I could sing 'Sveta ljubav' better (I've certainly been known to try when no-one's listening).  The next girl sang in Italian and was being drowned by dry ice.  Three boys with silver faces breakdanced to a mix of rap, hiphop, the Hallelujah chorus and a crying baby.  Two kids on a bench sang a song about Varazdin.   The show has evidently degenerated since it produced Renata Sabljak, if that's what it did.

Finally a girl in a white wig said she would sing 'My heart will go on'.  The host asked her if she knew what it meant.  She did, but that didn't mean she knew how to sing it.  Hopefully none of this lot will ever turn up in the real DORA.  Except the woman in the green dress.

After this it was the dancers again.  An energetic routine to an instrumental version of 'Probudi me' was provided by eight women (at least I think they were, even though one looked rather like Julian Clary.  How many points did Croatia give Dana International last year?) and it soon became clear they were going to do this to instrumentals of every Croatian entry so far.  They finished with 'Neka mi ne svane' at the closing notes of which Danijela Martinovic entered down a tunnel on to the stage and began to sing it, although she didn't take her cloak off this time.  Oliver asked her who she wanted to win, and she replied 'Petar', which can't have made Magazin, who she used to sing with, very happy.

Finally the scoreboard appeared and the voting began in true Eurovision style ('Dobra vecer Dubrovnice!  Dobra vecer Rijeko!   Dobra vecer Splite...'), with the difference that you couldn't hear any of the spokespeople, except the one from Vukovar who was shouting.  They lost the connection entirely when it came round to Zagreb (they themselves were also in Zagreb) and Vlatka tried to maintain conversation.  Suffice it to say she wasn't exactly Katie Boyle.   After almost every vote the roaming camera in the green room picked out Doris who had usually just picked up another 'dvanaest'.  During one of these interludes a bemused member of my family wandered in and after wondering why I wanted to watch four hours of eastern European television asked 'What's Madonna doing there?' Don't cry for me, Dalmacija......

Just like most ESCs not only was it clear from the outset who the winner was going to be, but all of my favourites collapsed into the mid-table positions, with Kristina picking up no points at all (I'm sure the ballet dancers had something to do with it), but Renata coming a respectable 11th.  It was only by this point it struck me that this thing had taken longer than the Eurovision itself......