[2025] Rehearsals #1

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🇲🇹 Malta - Miriana Conte – SERVING

Are we ready for Malta’s Miriana Conte to serve sass, attitude, and maybe a red Swiss ball or six?

So, first things first. Miriana Conte is a 24-year-old Maltese singer known for her electrifying performances and a fearless approach to music. She first attempted to represent Malta at Eurovision in 2017, aged just 16. Eight years later, she’s here in Basel, having served her unique brand of queen energy at all the pre-parties along the way.

So, let’s talk staging. Whilst The Sound of Music remains an inspiration (we’re still do-re-mi-fa-s-s-serving, after all), the visual storytelling we saw at MESC has mostly gone. Firstly there’s a big prop – a set of huge sparkly red lips holding a spinning disco ball – the whole structure is probably three metres high, and sits in the centre of the stage.

It turns at the start, and Miriana is inside, wearing a bright yellow dress with a huge skirt made from tiered netting with black sleeves. She’s lifted out of the disco ball and the dress, to reveal a catsuit that’s the same style as the one we saw at MESC, but now black and red and VERY sparkly. Her hair is now also bright red, by the way – the whole thing feels like a transition from poisonous flower to queen of hearts.

The dance routine is very similar to MESC, but her four dancers have swapped the Von Trapp outfits for red fishnets, strappy black underwear and red fur jackets. The final chorus plays out on the frame stage, where the red Swiss balls appear for a bouncy finish. The graphics wall transitions between graphic art exploding flowers and bouncing leopard visuals, dancing legs and words from the song, finishing with DIVA NOT DOWN in huge letters . The whole thing is very Miriana – bold, unapologetic, and a lot of fun. What a way to start the day!

Also 🔥PYRO UPDATE: lots of smoke jets in the chorus, and a big finish.

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11:10 CEST: Rehearsal 2: 🇬🇪 Georgia - Mariam Shengelia – Freedom

Next up to rehearse is Georgia’s Mariam Shengalia, singing her orchestral power ballad Freedom. It’s sung in both Georgian and English, and there are definitely some 1960s influences in the production of this track. So we’re really interesting to see how it comes to life on the big stage.

Mariam comes from a small town in Georgia, and took part in both The X Factor Georgia and The Voice Georgia. She’s also a member of Mixtura, a band known for its fusion of diverse musical influences.

We have another big prop – it’s a geometric rock that stands in the centre of the stage - Mariam performs on top of it, wearing a stunning silver gown that looks like it’s made from satin with organza layers that give it structure, so she becomes part of the rock. Four male dancers perform on the stage around her, all wearing traditional Georgian chokha coats in black, with close fitting headdresses and black boots – during the second verse they perform a complex flag dance routine with blue and white flags

The graphics on the back wall are simple but beautiful, with a moon rising behind Mariam between the two stage mountains that transitions into a red sun with storm clouds and neon rings. The graphics become faster and more dynamic as the song progresses – lots of performances have used lighting and graphics as a way to drive the performance this year, and this is a really effective example.

There’s also a dress reveal! During the middle eight, Mariam comes down from her rock, steps seamlessly out of her dress (it doesn’t move an inch, which suggests it’s VERY heavy), to reveal a red sequinned jumpsuit for the final chorus, which she performs on the frame stage against a backdrop of mountains. The strings and drums in this song are HUGE – it feels like the music is rising up through the arena floor

🔥 PYRO update! Heavy fog around the rock at the start, which dissipates to make it look like Mariam and her dancers are rising out of it. Today is going to be ALL about the drama.