DORA 2003 REVIEW

Friday, 7 March

Dora came home to Opatija this year, as it does whenever HRT are particularly alarmed by the state of their bank account.  Spreading the festival over an entire weekend can't have been too healthy for their balance, so they defrayed their expenses somewhat by staging the thing outdoors in a gigantic marquee.  It's a marquee that my entire house would comfortably fit into, but even so.

The traditional Inexplicable Opening Act has been dispensed with too, and the nearest thing is a replay of Vesna Pisarovic's winning performance from last year before the test card and a round of advertisements.  These, at least, have become marginally less garish in the Dora's ten years, although every other one now seems to feature a skiing Kostelic. 

The presenters of the first semi-final introduce themselves as Ljiljana and Mirko, and large doors open behind them whenever somebody else comes on stage, because tonight, Mirko, Dora debutant Ani is going to be Anastacia.  Well, she's probably expecting to be Vanna, but it all works the same way.  Sve me podsjeca na tebe is a catchy uptempo number, although its verses and choreography both prove a bit of a struggle.  Don't give up the day job; besides, she apparently works for a UN organisation, so she's bound to be more use to Croatia where she is.  Although in the office they probably don't let her wear nothing on top except two strategic white strips connecting her trousers to her necklace.

The lightly-Seventies Uzmi svu svoju ljubav is sung by Alan Hrzica, or, apparently, David Coulthard examining the area for a potential Croatian Grand Prix.  Alan has thought fit to turn up in a white jumpsuit with lots of tiny square panels cut out from the sides, and, from the neck down, could equally be heading up the country's first moon shot. From the neck up, he could be Margaret's good Irish Catholic brother in The Magdalene Sisters.  In his interview, Ljiljana tries to compare him to Enrique Iglesias and David Beckham at once.  Somebody take pity on that woman and let her have a sit down.

Izabela Martinovic is Danijela's sister, and it undoubtedly runs in the family.  In fact, as the lead singer of "Stijene" she arguably turned in some more accomplished performances than schlagerette Danijela ever managed, not least her Dora appearance in 2000 dressed as some sort of outer space princess.  Perhaps surprisingly, Izabela hasn't had her fill of wearing silver quite yet.  Sretna sam is a perfectly serviceable ballad, but a diluted version of what "Stijene" can do, and strangely enough, they've never been quite the same without her.  She might have got on better with a backing band and not the HRT orchestra: nobody sitting down and wearing a tuxedo should be playing an electric guitar.

Tonka is another Dora newcomer, but this isn't her first occasion in Opatija, as she was Miss Istria and Kvarner 1998, which qualified her for that year's Miss Croatia competition, organised by the same Ksenija Urlicic who kept an iron hand on the Dora throughout the 1990s.  If rumours are to be believed, its winner was apparently disqualified because she was a Muslim, although it would have made no difference to Tonka in any case. 

Dodji najbrze is trashy Cro-pop of the first order, so "Magazin", who won't be seen in the Dora again after they withdrew their 2002 entry in a huff, are certainly here in spirit.  Tonka has a ruched shiny lilac dress, although her eyes and hair appear to owe more, unintentionally, to Morticia Addams.  She goes about her song very enthusiastically, but when its title translates as Come as fast as you can, one would hope so too.

"Kawasaki 3P" received the lion's share of press coverage in the run-up to the Dora, which was surely the only thing the selection panel can have been thinking of when they let them into the damn thing.  They're a ska-punk band, something the Dora has never been graced with in the past, and doesn't particularly need to be graced with now.  For all we know, Tonka, Ani and the rest may well have an Inner Avril Lavigne deep down inside, but it's better for all concerned if we haven't got to see her.

In a 180-degree change of pace, Claudia seems to have brought along her entire aerobics class to help her out with the tricky bits of Više nisam tvoja.  She really ought not to have that many problems with it: it's as near Sasvim sigurna as makes no difference, so she's had the best part of a year to practise.  Claudia does no more work than her backing singers do, except for taking more care not to walk out of the spotlights.  Croatia has been blissfully spared of boybands and the like so far, but this is Š Klub Sedam in all but name.

Alenka Milano has sung the backing vocals for Danijela, Doris Dragovic and Vanna in their Eurovision appearances, so she should be used to this by now.  She has, however, spilt an entire tub of body glitter down her cleavage since then, and been kitted out with the same zebra-like highlights that did Ani no favours whatsoever.  Nasmij me is a pleasant ballad with a vague hint in its chorus of I will always love you, which Tereza Kesovija has done rather better. 

Tina i Nikša's Za sva vremena has a touch of You really got me, and then The final countdown.  And what happens after the second bar?  Unlike Alan Hrzica, Nikša might actually deserve a comparison to David Beckham, as long as that's David Beckham on a particularly pretentious poster for sunglasses.  The duo first appeared in the Dora in 1998, and Tina's got herself quite a voice since then, although Nikša, it's fair to say, hasn't.  Presenter Mirko is rather appreciative of Tina's dress as they come off stage, prompting Nikša to ask 'What about my shirt?' Beckham, indeed.

Jelena Radan has a camouflage jacket, black trousers, and an excellent contemporary ballad, Povedi me, which wouldn't sound out of place in San Remo; indeed, Jelena had said she'd like to sing it in Italian if it had won.  The most talented singer to break through in Croatia in the last few years, she already seems one of the best they've got, and works the full length of the stage as if she's been going for a lot longer than she has.  The violinists just behind her seem to enjoy the limelight even more than Jelena, and one of them, alarmingly, has been interrupted in the process of turning into Jennifer Saunders.

No human being should be as eternally chirpy as Maja Šuput, who is what the crazed robot-builder in Buffy the Vampire Slayer would have come up with if he had been watching endless repeats of 1980s Melodifestivalen.  There's probably a control panel lurking under that tightly-zipped tennis top. That said, Cista petica is less Scandinavian than her earlier Dora attempts have been, and seems to owe rather more to the cheap folk-pop that used to fill up the lower reaches of Jugovizija.

Alen Vitasovic is Croatian music's answer to the perpetually grumpy comedian Jack Dee, and should probably have what Maja Šuput's having.  Lakše je kad se kraj ne vidi is an Italian-style ballad taken over by the backing singers in the middle eight, where the piano decides to go its own sweet way as well. 

Leaving aside the Chinese flute which starts it off, Moje ime je ljubav is everything one would expect from Maja Blagdan - histrionics, damatic hand gestures and hair just this side of pillar-box red.  The song is very nearly, but not quite, up to the standard of her Sveta ljubav, although Maja has suddenly begun to look rather older than she did in 1996.  As she goes off stage, Ljiljana notes that she seems to change her image an awful lot.  Maja grits her teeth and replies that it had better be a compliment.

To give the audience time to televote, 2001's winner Vanna turns up as the interval act, complete with a wide silver headband suggesting that somebody forgot to get their roots done this afternoon.  There's a full orchestra for Strings of my heart this time, and the tuxedoed guitarist will be putting in some overtime.  Why couldn't it sound like this in Copenhagen?  She goes on to Kao rijeka, Ja imam snage za to, Ispod istog neba, Daj mi jedan dobar razlog and a powerful Ako je vrijedilo išta, with the décolletage of her silver wrap-around blouse slipping further and further down.  So frequent an occupational hazard is this for Vanna that one would think she would pre-empt herself and turn up with a silver bra.

Six of the twelve go through to the final on Sunday: Šuput, Claudia, Maja Blagdan, Tina i Nikša, the punk band and Alen Vitasovic.  Vitasovic only makes it there thanks to the near-maximum points he was awarded from his home region of Istria: although he and Jelena finish with the same score, the count-back rule awards the sixth berth to Vitasovic instead.  Satisfying for the Istrians, perhaps, but hardly for the rest of us.

Saturday, 8 March

Mirko and Ljiljana have been replaced by Davor and Karmela tonight - surely they can't have done it that badly.  Disconcertingly, Karmela's eyes seem to revolve in their sockets of their own accord, so yet another duo for Sunday might not be unwelcome.  On the other hand, show me another pairing, or indeed another final, which would intrduce a song called Robot with a routine about Star Wars and the Czech playwright Karel Capek, who coined the phrase in the first place.

Two years ago, Luka Nizetic was singing the same kind of soppy ballad about Split as Goran Karan can be counted upon to provide, but he's grown up a little since then.  Robot turns out to be a hard-edged dance song along the lines of "Colonia" by way of Depeche Mode, with a disturbing chorus of 'Kao robot ljubiš me' - 'You love me like a robot'.  Luka runs out of interest in the robotica thereafter, however, and two lines later the song has degenerated into an Eiffel 65-like 'Tu di dam, tu di di'.  It's Justin Timberlake meets Michalis Rakintzis. 

With a traditional Adriatic klapa behind her, Gina Kuljanic displays the questionable skill of adding a vibrato to almost every single note of Sanjam.  Gina comes from New Jersey, and has certainly brought one kind of Atlantic sensibility to the Dora: she's got long red hair and a somehow familiar trailing white dress, and the video wall behind her has ben entirely colonised by a graphic of rippling waves.  So that explains the vibrato - she's meant to have gone five fathoms under with the Titanic.  Her Croatian is supposed to be rather atrocious, or at least, if I was about to be interviewed by two excitable Dora presenters I would probably not have made very much more of a mess out of it.

Ivan Brdar's only claim to something approaching fame so far was that he was voted Best Debutant at last year's Melodije Kvarnera, his local festival.  Having been in Rijeka that evening, I can confirm that not only was his song essentially the same, but that that seems to be the only suit he's got.  Just as for Gina, his first Dora appearance must have been a tremendous experience for the boy, but from the point of view of those of us who aren't Mrs Brdar, we'd rather have him back in a few years.

It's a Dora formality that every year the orchestra has to fall over one uptempo number, and this year Andrea Cubric, performing Ne vjeruj mi, drew the short straw.  Since the Dora saw her last, in 1998, Andrea has joined Vanna's old band "ET" and left again, although whether she'll follow in the steps of Vanna's illustrious career is another matter.  Andrea's recently cut her hair and dyed it red, and there's a big scarlet ribbon wrapped around her upper arm to remind us.  That, or she's off to give blood after this thing is over.  Like most of the other competitors, Andrea takes advantage of her mini-interview to mention her forthcoming CD, which in her case is apparently titled She's got the look.  Well, she said it.  I didn't.

"Viva" have only broken through in the last two years, but on the strength of Pitaju mi, pitaju are a potential "Magazin" in the making: it's the bouncy pop number with, shall we say, uncomplicated lyrics that Tonci Huljic would undoubtedly have sent to Opatija if not for a certain tantrum.  Yet another example of this year's ever so slightly Gothic approach to eyeshadow, accentuated here by the lead singer's red velvet blouse.  Full marks, too, for the extremely gratuitous flute on the last chorus but one.  Or possibly one of Gina's musicians still hasn't made it off stage yet.

Legendary songwriter Zdenko Runjic was supposed to have retired after last year, but Samo more zna is apparently the song that made him change his mind.  Even so, its performer wasn't confirmed for a couple of weeks after the Dora songs were announced: one would almost suspect that it was rattling around Runjic's record label until it reached his new protégé Zvonimir Divic, who could hardly say no.  Before Divic, Runjic's last discovery was Jelena Radan, so he's allowed the benefit of the doubt, but this is a typical Runjic ballad about the sea without the typical Runjic string arrangement that, if you're lucky, ought to come as standard.  By the end of it, the trumpets are louder than Zvonimir.

The battle between "Karma"'s lead singer Mirela and her troublesome throat sums up the old adage that The Show Must Go On.  The poor girl is almost in tears on the first verse of Nocas ne te dam nikome when she realises her voice isn't going to hold out, and barely scrapes through to the end of the dance song, although nobly covered for by her two backing vocalists.  Davor prescribes vitamins and painkillers; Karmela, shopping and cokolada.

Disappointed by her failure to get through the semi-finals, Ivana Kindl immediately complained to anyone who would listen that her R-and-B number Ti mi daješ snagu was simply 'too urban for the Dora'.  It's always a possibility, of course, but so are the messy verses and the fact that she seemed to have shown up wearing her bathrobe, not to mention a set of black-and-blonde hair extensions that could hardly be more obvious if she'd tied them on with cotton twine.  According to Davor and Karmela, Ivana's an ex-gymnast at some or other level, so long may Svetlana Khorkina's present career endure - we don't need any more of them having ideas like this.

Jacques, otherwise known as the Bouncing Fat Man, made such an impact on last year's Dora that he's returned for a second try with Na krilima ljubavi. (I do mean the festival, of course, and not the floorboards, heaven no.) His career has taken off in the intervening twelve months, and "Colonia" have rendered all possible assistance, which does not, by the looks of things, include a stylist - even Maja Šuput would suit a David Beckham mohican better than he.

On Emilija Kokic's first appearance in a Eurovision preselection, it was Jugovizija 1989 and she went on to win the whole thing.  She was runner-up in Dora 2001, but if her level of success continues in this pattern, she'll be making the tea in the green room by the time she enters again.  The unexceptional ballad Zena od pepela doesn't make it through to the semis either, leading Emilija to say how much she wants the juries back to anyone who is still listening after putting up with Ivana Kindl.

Televoting, on the other hand, doesn't seem to harm Nina Badric, whose song Carobno jutro is, if anything, even less exciting than Emilija's.  The same has to be said for her dress, since Nina's salmon pink is no match for Emilija's collage of sequins and gilded leaves.  The amount of time it must have taken someone to make that for Emilija, it's amazing they let her send the bottom half through Jessica Garlick's shredder before she put it on.

One never quite knows if Giuliano will sing a dance song or a ballad until he turns up, but in the last year or two the balance has seemed to shift towards the latter.  Being demobbed from his military service hasn't agreed with Giuliano, who shows worrying signs of acquiring a double chin.  Moja lipa is an average Dalmatian ballad that would fit better into Melodije Hrvatskog Jadrana, but at least if you're particularly bored you can always try to sing Travis' Driftwood along to the chorus.

As welcome as an encore from Vanna might have been, Saturday's interval is 2000's winner Goran Karan, who launches into a new version of Kada zaspu andjeli overlaid with Spanish castanets.  By the end of his set, he's extended his Mediterranean Mystery Tour to Greece and Turkey too, and tried to pull off a strange comedy routine with an audience member's mobile phone. (Trigger Happy TV's Dom Joly, in contrast, would have had a field day: Hello!  I'm at the Dora!  No, it's rubbish...)

Although Nina Badric had been installed as the pre-contest favourite, "Karma" end up winning the televote after Mirela's heroics: if I ever need to win a Dora at short notice, remind me to come down with a severe case of the flu beforehand.  Nina, Giuliano, Gina Kuljanic, Luka Nizetic and Jacques follow them to the final, and Emilija and Ivana, by all accounts, go off to sulk.

Sunday, 9 March

It's encouraging to see the Dora hasn't, in fact, lost its unique taste in opening acts after all, even if this one is less Cirque de Soleil and more Les parapluies de Cherbourg, involving five girls in Fifties pastel twirling umbrellas in time with Volare and having them stolen by five lads on motor scooters.  Didn't they listen to a word their mothers used to say?  Vesna Pisarovic is brought on for real, with a show-stopping remix of Sasvim sigurna, before the weekend's third set of presenters - Duško Culic and Danijela 'not that one' Trpovic, who usually hosts HRT's chart show - give the regulation thanks to their directors, conductors and, this time, choreographer Rajko Pavelic.  At last, we know who to blame.  

The running order for the final is decided by the singers' scores in the semi-finals, so Luka Nizetic, who's first up, might almost as well not have bothered.  Croatia's answer to Colin Farrell - if he keeps trying, anyway - Luka has swapped Saturday's nondescript woolly hat for a Guess one, and the large tattoo on his shoulder was surely not there yesterday.  Nobody has stood down the brass section of the orchestra, who are even more intrusive than they were the night before.

Alen Vitasovic, as usual, sings as if he would rather be telephoning his performance in from Istria, or alternatively as if he has still not got over the celebration of his lucky escape on Friday night.  Lakše je kad se kraj ne vidi translates as It's easier when you can't see the end, but only two songs into a Dora of this length, some may disagree.

"Kawasaki 3P" are wearing their dressing gowns this evening, and making Antonija's life just as difficult.  One of their trumpeters removes lead singer Tomislav's dressing gown after the first chorus and throws it into the audience (memo to Luka Nizetic: those are tattoos).  Not many songs get written about Antonija, and when she gets one, this is how it turns out; how jealous of Marija Magdalena, to name but one, she must be.

Jacques, with silver tips on his mohican this time, is increasingly overshadowed by his four dancers.  Except in the literal sense, of course, which would surely be rather difficult.  In another life, they'd go and start a girlband of their own, and when the same thing happened to Toni Cetinski nine years ago, they did.

Gina Kuljanic has swum out from underneath her shipwreck once again to sashay her way through Sanjam; if she'd had more notice, she could even have brought her Heart of the Ocean necklace too.  She can be very proud indeed of her eventual surprise fourth place, but must be somewhat relieved that there are no artist interviews on the Sunday show.  Although she's got her Hvala lijepa down pat.

What Tina i Nikša are doing in the final at all, when Jelena Radan isn't, is particularly inexplicable: Za sva vremena is no more than an old-fashioned schlager masquerading as a dance song, and with a different arangement could be sung by Elisabeth Andreassen or, even, Carola.  And why, when Tina's hair is bright orange, have they put purple round her eyes?

With the best will in the world, Maja Blagdan has had better days at the office, but Tempestuous may not come quite so easily any more.  She was in more control of Moje ime je ljubav on the Friday, perhaps, but it's hard not to think that back in 1996 she would never have missed her final screech like that.  Even for Maja, there may come an age to grow old dis/gracefully and become, like Tereza Kesovija, a glorified covers singer, but on this occasion I'd be grateful not to be kept informed when she does.

Giuliano's performance of Moja lipa is as textbook as the night before, and Nina Badric is equally faultless, although her new magnolia dress makes her look rather as if she's in danger of being swallowed up by a carnivorous plant.  Claudia, once again, seems intent on turning the Dora into an outpost of Fame Academy, and one almost wonders if she really signed on for next week's Miss Universe selection but turned up in Opatija a few days too early.

So outraged was the Croatian press at the thought that Maja Šuput might win the Dora altogether that it devoted quite some quantity of its column inches over the weekend to attempting to prevent any such thing.  The press campaign doesn't seem to have put off the Dora's very own Pollyanna, though, and keep an eye on that souped-up sports bra that all but makes up her entire costume: that's Anna Kournikova's next Wimbledon outfit you're looking at.

Mirela of "Karma" has dragged herself out of her sick bed for the final, but the poor dear needs rescuing by her now identically dressed backing singers almost as early on as she did yesterday.  They might not want to all wear such short skirts again, though; it seems to suggest that Sestre will shortly be on their way.

Before the reprise for the televoters, we're treated to another indecipherable dance show, seemingly something to do with a breakdancing contest breaking out in the middle of a zombie film.  On balance, I'm not sure I wouldn't rather have the Umbrella Girls back, but both displays have at least offered the compensation of Keeping An Eye Out For That Redhead In The Back.  It might as well be a "Putokazi" number, even though it isn't, and at least HRT seems to have found the right place for this sort of thing: in 2000 and 2001 they'd have put it in competition.

Little has been heard recently from Severina, arguably Croatia's biggest star right now.  It can't have taken her all year to film the ten-second advertisement for fruit yoghurts where she doles them out to deserving kiddies like a pantomime dame when the action's getting slow.

Back to the Dora, and four women with feather dusters and orange aprons emerge from a giant wedding cake, but these are the "Divas" - Toni Cetinski's girls as were - even if the first half of their current hit Bon appetit seems to be written in "Putokazi"'s trademark fairy-language.  The put-upon guy on their receiving end is rapper General Woo, so let's see what that does for Ivana Kindl's theory.

Coming up with an interval act that becomes more talked about than the Dora entries themselves may say something unfortunate about HRT's priorities, but it's nonetheless what they managed to do: each of the Divas performs a duet with a bona fide diva old enough to be their mother, a line-up from which Tereza Kesovija has been conspicuously excluded, or perhaps has excluded herself.  Anyone coming across a spinning wheel when they clear this tent away would be very well advised to leave it alone.

Gabi Novak is making a comeback of her own accord at the moment, and Meri Cetinic was very good indeed a couple of MHJs ago, but Sixties star Radojka Šverko could do with a boost to her career and, on the strength of this performance, ought to have one.  With luck, she'll have the sense not to follow Zdenka Kovacicek and Jasna Zlokic into the camp uptempo numbers both women have adopted.  Josipa Lisac must be the only woman her age who can carry off hair that colour and length, unless Pink has been concealing a particularly inspirational grandmother - and even as it is, one could probably coonvince a Dora newcomer that she was Julian Clary.  Before this Dora I had never imagined Lisac, or any of them, performing an ensemble rendition of the Divas' 1996 Dora entry Sexy cool.

Despite various predictions of victory for Nina, Maja Šuput or even "Kawasaki 3P", the surprise winner - with maximum points from all five regions, no less, is Claudia.  She goes to Riga tasked with getting Croatia back into Eurovision's top ten, of which a seasoned drama-queen like Maja Blagdan might perhaps have had more chance.  At only seventeen, Claudia even makes me feel old, although if Gina Kuljanic has managed it, then maybe the rest of us shouldn't give up quite yet...