CYPRUS WILL not be participating in the Eurovision final tonight for the fourth year in a row after contestant Christina Metaxa’s ‘Firefly’ failed to shine.
Firefly, penned by Metaxa’s older brother Nicolas, failed to win over the TV audience, leaving Cyprus out of the final for the fourth consecutive year.
Forecasts over the past couple of weeks had Cyprus in the last five spots from the 42 countries participating.
Constantinos, a 27-year-old musician told the Cyprus Mail, “It was a very nervy performance. Her brother Nicolas has written this song it was a cool song, I even heard them sing it as a duet and we all wondered why they didn’t enter that version instead. They should have entered as a duet”,
Andreas, a Eurovision aficionado believes Metaxa’s voice was to blame, “I’ve always liked the song; however she is perhaps not the most capable of vocalists. The bigger parts of the song proved too much for Christina’s weak voice. The backing group did their bit, but it was unlikely to be enough. The firefly simply didn’t glow”.
Not everyone believed the performance was terrible. “I thought she did a great job, I was watching her in the auditions and I was worried because she always looked so nervous but I thought she did a great job in the semi-final and she looked very pretty too”, said.
Thirty-year-old architect Theodora said: “Placing you in a semi-final with countries likely to vote for you will help while ending up surrounded by countries that generally don’t like your type of music will make some basically give up immediately. I mean Ukraine, Moldova, Azerbaijan are all neighbours. We didn’t stand a chance. Every year I tell myself I’m not going to watch the Eurovision because it angers me and yet I can’t help myself”
The second semi-final had more surprises in store than the first as many songs that were dubbed as favourites did not make it to the final and those considered outsiders made it. Ten countries from the 19 contestants were chosen by televoting to move forward to today’s Eurovision final.
For years the Contest has suffered from neighbourly voting tactics and political voting and though the introduction of juries votes counting 50 per cent this year might have some influence on the final result.
Azerbaijan, Croatia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Albania, Moldova, Denmark, Estonia, Norway, Greece were the ten countries from the second semi-final that won the golden ticket to today’s final. Although she did not make it through to the final Metaxa is not going home with nothing. For her the Eurovision Song Contest has brought a host of new experiences. “I’ve become stronger as a person,” she told Eurovision TV. “I’ve been very fragile, closed in my room. I wouldn’t go to this kind of events. Now I feel proud in a way that I’ve managed to speak to so many people and handle so many things.”
Metaxa’s brother Nicolas said his sister had inspired him to write the song. “Christina is shy and sensitive and she often needs an extra push to take risks in her life and pursue her dreams, as all teenagers do. Firefly tries to tackle the insecurities and doubts that people often have and give them a motive to take a ‘leap of faith.”
