The Nation On Stage

           Moldova has proved that they belong and are able to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest at a high level since their debut in 2005 and even being able to qualify for the finals ten times since their first performance. Like many of the other European countries, Moldova consistently pulls off great performances with compelling visuals, songs, dancing, and other aspects of a performance. Their performances also have some diversity and represent the interests of the Moldovan people in a unique way. In this post, I will be analyzing the literary and visual devices that were used in Moldova's performances in the 2013 and 2014 Eurovision Song Contest while also evaluating the diversity of their performances.

           I will begin by looking at Moldova's performance in the Eurovision Song Contest grand final in 2013.  In this performance, Moldovan singer Aliona Moon sung “O Mie” or “A Million,” a ballad that was ranked as 11th that year. This performance was exceptional overall and many aspects of this performance caught my attention. I felt like a story was being told throughout the performance and the first indicator of this was the on-stage visuals. (NRK TV – Eurovision Song Contest) As we can see at the beginning of the performance the stage, the lower half of the singers dress, as well as parts of the audience were covered in pink lights, automatically making me view this song as a love song because of the association that the color pink has with love. If we read the translated lyrics of the song we can see that this song is, in fact, a love song so the colors match the lyrics at the start of the song and an example of this is “Your beautiful smile woke me up in the mornings a million times.” (O Mie (English translation)) We then see some imagery towards the beginning through the picture of the night sky with stars as this matches with the lyrics “A million hopes were revealed in discretion, at shooting stars, and we didn’t care that I was from Venus, and you were from Mars.”

           The middle portion of this song is a transition to a different mood and emotional state because the lyrics go from kind of remembering the memories that the singer had with someone and reminiscing about the times that they spent together to the singer not wanting anything to do with the person that she is singing about. The lyrics say “My heart is too ill, I thought that we can go on, but you chose to go alone, go away! Now I’m done,” and this shows me how the mood of the song and performance has changed as the song goes on. Another sign that the mood of the song has changed is the emotion of the dancers. At the beginning of the performance, the dancers were more calm and relaxed but they became more intense as the song goes on.

           In the final part of the performance, after the second chorus, the overall tone of the performance and song remains the same overall. However, the performance gives me a more angry mood because of the visuals. We can see that thunderbolts begin to flash in the background and on the singers' dress. This transitions into flames in the background and on the singers dress. While this is all happening, the singer rises, revealing the total length of her dress. The lyrics at this stage are about betrayal and disappointment and the visuals back this up. After the flames are gone the mood of the performance dies down and the flames are replaced by smoke and the emotion of the dancers are also much calmer, signaling that the singer is over whoever or whatever this song was about.

The second performance that I will be analyzing is Moldova’s 2014 performance in the Eurovision Song Contest. In 2014, Moldova performed the song “Wild Soul,” a ballad by Cristina Scarlat. (NRK TV – Eurovision Song Contest) This performance was really good and it shocked many people when it did not make the grand finals. To begin my analysis, I will look at the costume that the singer is wearing and it reminds me of a female soldier or something that the Catholic Saint Joan of Arc would wear. (Jeanne d'Arc 2018) This costume choice fits the theme of the song very well, especially if we look at the lyrics when she sings the chorus, “Mercy I have no feelings of mercy, destiny left me so empty, empty in my heart and my spirit My patience, fighting with our indifference, fighting to win over everything that we are and can be.” (Cristina Scarlat – Wild Soul)

At the beginning of this performance, there is not much going on in terms of the on-stage visuals. Before the first chorus, all we see is streams of light pointing in many directions and what appears to be images of a dark forest with trees in the background. I think that these visuals fit the mood of the performance at this moment because everything is calm and going smooth. We also see dancers wearing tan costumes, however, I am unable to identify the significance of their costumes.

When the first chorus begins, the emotion of the singer and the dancers change. The performance starts becoming more upbeat and we can see this through the dancers when their movements become more explosive, the visuals as the lights begin to flash brighter, and the emotion that you hear in the singers' voice and see in her movements. At the conclusion of the first chorus, the stage is overcome with red lights and the images of the dark woods become replaced with red as well.

The last of the significant parts of this performance occurs at the final part of the song, during the third chorus. At the beginning of the third chorus, the singer appears to cut off a big portion of her hair. Many people have viewed this action as a metaphor relating to the movie “Mulan”, where the main character, a female soldier cuts off her hair as well. When asked about this action, Cristina Scarlat has said:

Cutting my hair on stage is a metaphor. It symbolizes the decision that a human being takes when in doubt. As I start the song, I am unsure of the reason for my existence. As the lyrics say: What am I? Am I human? Each of us has two important sides inside us, which often battle with each other: the powerful fighter and the weak emotional side. By cutting my hair, I choose to be a fighter and confront all the difficulties in life, not only on a personal level but also to make the world a better place. (Moldova's Cristina is a Eurovision Mulan 2017)

In all honesty, I do not see how these performances reflect any identities of Moldova or create some diversity, other than the use of Moldova's main language, Romanian, in the 2013 performance. Although I could not find any uniqueness in these performances, their use of Romanian is unique in its own way because, in recent times, more and more performers are choosing to sing in English instead of their native language and it is nice to see Moldova paying homage to its roots.

Moldova's performances were very homogenous in my eyes and this is mainly because both songs were upbeat ballads and had similar themes. Both performances played out the same on stage where the emotion slowly escalated as the performance went on. I also noticed that both singers were pretty much stationary throughout their performances and incorporated some kind of special action at the end of the song with the singer rising in 2013 and the singer cutting off her hair in 2014. After watching both of these performances I can conclude that Moldova seems to be interested in a lot of ballads and carry out their performances in similar ways in most instances.

Works Cited

Cristina Scarlat – Wild Soul. (n.d.). Retrieved February 19, 2019, from https://genius.com/Cristina-scarlat-wild-soul-lyrics

Jeanne d'Arc. (2018, May 06). Retrieved February 19, 2019, from https://www.pinterest.com/VanDiemensLand/jeanne-darc/

Moldova in Eurovision Voting & Points. (n.d.). Retrieved February 19, 2019, from https://eurovisionworld.com/eurovision/moldova

Moldova's Cristina is a Eurovision Mulan. (2017, April 09). Retrieved February 19, 2019, from https://eurovision.tv/story/moldova-s-cristina-is-a-eurovision-mulan

NRK TV – Eurovision Song Contest. (n.d.). Retrieved February 19, 2019, from https://tv.nrk.no/serie/eurovision-song-contest/2013/MUHU13006313/avspiller

NRK TV – Eurovision Song Contest. (n.d.). Retrieved February 19, 2019, from https://tv.nrk.no/serie/eurovision-song-contest/2014/MUHU11006214/avspiller

O mie (English translation). (n.d.). Retrieved February 19, 2019, from https://lyricstranslate.com/en/o-mie-thousand.html

Word Count:

1332