Latvian popular music is a broad church, and Bonaparti.lv’s “Questa Notte” produces a performance infused with WTF and OMG.
The six-member tenor ensemble — Andris Ābelīte, Andris Ērglis, Normunds Jakušonoks, Roberto Meloni, Zigfrīds Muktupāvels and Kaspars Tīmanis — wander on set one at a time to deliver their lines. They wear formal suits and top hats, carry white roses, and arrive against a lavish white-and-gold design featuring golden rings on the screens. The cumulative effect by the time the last of them arrives is one of FFS, how many of them are there?
It’s the lost Italian entry, and yet at the same time it’s like Israel 1979 on raisins. The song is actually an original Latvian entry, written by Kjell Jennstig, Francesca Russo and Torbjörn Wassenius, though the Italian language and operatic tenor presentation make the confusion entirely understandable.
Bonaparti.lv won Latvia’s televised Eirodziesma selection in Ventspils on 24 February, taking 49,422 public votes in the superfinal. But this is being written on 6 May, before Latvia has performed in the Eurovision semi-final: in Helsinki, they are due to close the show in position 28 on 10 May.
Retrospectively, Latvia qualified in fifth place with 168 points, then finished 16th in the grand final with 54 points. At the time, though, the only useful comparison was with the sharply contrasting Andorra: Anonymous and “Salvem el món”, a youthful Catalan-language punk-rock entry in the same semi-final. Andorra don’t feel quite so nailed on, all of a sudden.
