This article forms part of the OnEurope archive and was originally published on oneurope.co.uk. It has been permanently migrated to oneurope.net, the official home of OnEurope.
Was going to sing in French for a verse, in direct contravention of the rules!! And it came to pass that’s exactly what she has done. During rehearsals in Stockholm, Moldova’s Lidia Isac was indeed reported as singing the second verse of Falling Stars in French.
The question, then, was what had gone on in the background, because this table says she was in contravention of the rules:
“Changes to the lyrics, the artist or group (including its name), the title of the song and the language of the performance (i.e. all elements which appear in printed material such as brochures, CD covers and booklets) shall be allowed only up until the date of the HoD Meeting. Any later changes may be approved only by the Host Broadcaster, in consultation with the EBU Permanent Services, but in such a case an automatic penalty shall be applied.”
Well, she’s done that – so what’s her penalty? Different song?? Different singer?? Monetary penalty?? Or nothing….
There was certainly some scope for confusion. Falling Stars had been submitted and published as an English-language song, while a separate French promotional/acoustic version, Pluie d’étoiles, appeared around 2 May. That did not necessarily mean the French version was approved for the Eurovision contest itself, but the rehearsal version suggested that something had changed, or at least been tested.
So, on 6 May, the mystery remained: had the change been approved by SVT and the EBU, or was Moldova about to discover what “automatic penalty” actually meant?
Retrospective update: the French verse was not used in the televised contest performance. Moldova ultimately performed Falling Stars entirely in English in the first semi-final. There is no reliable public evidence of a monetary, scoring or other penalty over the rehearsed French verse; the safest conclusion is that the apparent rules problem was resolved before the live show, although the precise backstage decision was never documented publicly.
Moldova performed third in the first semi-final on 10 May, finished 17th of 18 entries with 33 points and failed to qualify. The official split was 24 jury points and 9 televote points.
Oh, the song… oh yes… still crap 😉 – it’s three minutes of meh!
