Eurovision Song Contest 1991

Carola

Date: May 4, 1991
Venue: Studio 15 di Cinecittà, Rome, Italy
Presenters: Toto cutugno, Gigliola Cinquetti
Orchestra: Bruno Canfora orchestra
Conductor: Bruno Canfora
Director: Riccardo Donna
Scruteneer: Frank Naef
Host broadcaster: RAI
Price presenter: Albert Scharf
Interval act: Arturo Brachetti (quick-change artist)
Duration: 3 hours, 14 minutes
Number of entries: 22
Debuting countries:
Returning countries: Malta
Withdrawing countries: Netherlands
Winning Song: Fångad av en stormvind - Carola, Sweden
Voting system: Each country awarded 12, 10, 8-1 points to their 10 favourite songs

Sergio Dalma

Entries

01. Yugoslavia: Baby Doll - Brzil (21st place, 1 point)
02. Iceland: Stefán & Eyfi - Draumur um Nínu (15th place, 26 points)
03. Malta: Georgina & Paul Giordimaina (6th place, 106 points)
04. Greece: Sophia Vossou - I anixia (13th place, 36 points)
05. Switzerland: Sandra Simó - Canzone per te (5th place, 118 points)
06. Austria: Thomas Forstner - Venedig in Regen (22nd place, 0 points)
07. Luxembourg: Sarah Bray - Un baiser volé (14th place, 29 points)
08. Sweden: Carola - Fångad av en stormvind (1st place, 146 points)
09. France: Amina - C'est le dernier qui a parlé qui a raison (2nd place, 146 points)
10. Turkey: İzel Çeliköz, Reyhan Karaca & Can Uğurluer - Iki dakika (12th place, 144 points)
11. Ireland: Kim Jackson - Could it be that I'm in love (10th place, 47 points)
12. Portugal: Dulce Pontes - Lusitana paixão (8th place, 62 points)
13. Denmark: Anders Frandsen - Lige der hvor hjertet slår (19th place, 8 points)
14. Norway: Just 4 Fun - Mrs. Thompson (17th place, 14 points)
15. Israel: Duo Datz - Kan (3rd place, 139 points)
16. Finland: Kaija Kärkinen - Hullu yö (20th place, 6 points)
17. Germany: Atlantis 2000 - Dieser Traum darf niemals sterben (18th place, 10 points)
18. Belgium: Clouseau - Geef het op (16th place, 23 points)
19. Spain: Sergio Dalma - Bailar pegados (4th place, 119 points)
20. UK: Samantha Janus - A message to your heart (10 th place, 47 points)
21. Cyprus: Elena Patroklou - SOS (9th place, 60 points)
22. Italy: Peppino di Capri - Comme è ddoce 'o mare (7th place, 89 points)

Duo Datz

The Eurovision Song Contest 1991 was the 36th Eurovision Song Contest and was held on 4 May 1991 in Rome. Due to the Gulf War and mounting tensions in Yugoslavia, RAI decided to move the contest from Sanremo to Rome, which was perceived to be more secure.

Carola was the winner of this Contest with the song Fångad av en stormvind which was written by Stephan Berg. This was the third victory for Sweden, the last one being in 1984.

Format

The presenters were Gigliola Cinquetti and Toto Cutugno, the latter having some difficulty with the pronunciation of the song titles and names of the artists and conductors. Despite this, in Italy almost seven million people watched the show. In addition to tallying the vote numbers in English and French, Cinquetti and Cutugno gave each of the jury allotments in Italian as well.

 Georgina & Paul Giordimaina

Nearly all of the commentary during the voting was given in Italian, which is not an official language of the European Broadcasting Union. (English and French are, and in the Eurovision Song Contest it is mandatory to provide commentary in at least one of those languages)

Sara Carlson gave the opening ceremony performance, titled Celebration, a mixture of modern dance in ancient settings of Ancient Rome, the performance featured Carlson singing and a mixture of street dance and classical dance choreographed to popular sounding music of the time. At the time, Carlson had appeared numerous times on Italian TV and this was seen as one of her largest audiences.

Problems

During Carola's performance, the sound system in the venue broke down and the audience could not hear her sing. However, the song was broadcast without problems.
The show also overran quite significantly, something which subsequent contests have been careful to prevent (except 2002 and 2005).

 Dulce Pontes

Voting

During the final vote (Italy) none of the top three contenders - Sweden, Israel and France - had received any points up until the last 12-point vote. This vote went to France and for the first time in twenty-two years, there was a tie for first place, with France overcoming a large deficit to catch up with Sweden. However, since the four-way tie of 1969, the rules had been altered to ensure a single outright winner. The first step in the procedure was to check the number of 12-point votes awarded to each country. Sweden and France were still tied. But when counting the number of 10-point votes, Sweden had more and was finally declared the winner. If the tie occurred today, France would have won because it had been voted for by more countries than Sweden.

Participating Countries

The Netherlands did not participate in this contest as it conflicted with the Remembrance of the Dead national holiday, and so Malta was allowed to participate in the Contest for the first time in 16 years, unable to before due to entry restrictions.

Returning artists

There were five returning artists in 1991, Thomas forstner also represented Austria in 1989, Stefán Hilmarsson was a member of Beathoven, who represented Iceland in 1988.  Eiríkur Hauksson was in 1986 a member of Icy, Hanne Krogh represented Norway in 1971 and in 1985 and Carola represented Sweden in 1983.