Sweden

La Voix Malena Ernman

"J'entends la voix..."

The last year has seen a shift in the focus of the national selection process for Eurovision in many countries, but nowhere more so than on the shores of the Baltic Sea. But whereas Estonia and Lithuania took the option (to greater or lesser success) of cutting the cord between Eesti Laul and Dainų Daina and the contest itself, Sweden's Melodifestivalen - the biggest national final in Europe - implemented changes that although more cosmetic in nature will have a greater impact on their Eurovision entry. Choosing to forgo live backing vocals and upping the numbers of artists on stage could be seen as a move by SVT to say "this is MF, not ESC", but it will force the broadcaster to significantly rework the performance of its entry for the first time in many years. And given the nature of that entry - the operatic, schlagertastic La Voix - how it will translate is one of the great unknowns of the 2009 season.

Perhaps realising that resting on their laurels was producing ever-diminishing returns, the Swedes would seem to have taken the decision to steer the set-up of their national final away from the ESC norm in a deliberate move to ensure that whichever song won would have to be reworked for Moscow. Luckily for Sweden, they have a knack for coming up with flawless backing vocals, so we can only assume that if they're let down anywhere it won't be in that department, however demanding the vocals themselves may be. Only time will tell whether my fantasy of an OTT Louis XV frock overload materialises, but till then my greatest misgiving with La Voix remains its performer, Malena Ernman (a vision in blonde to rival Petr Elfimov). Her opera vocals are the stuff of goosebumps, but her delivery of the verses verges on drag-queen-hitting-on-terrified-twink, and she does tend to look the part. She also lends a strange nasal quality to the vocals here, like she needs to give her nose a long overdue blow. Mind you, with all the arm-pointing and divaesque elevation going on, very few are likely to notice or care.

Because basically the two things La Voix has going for it are (a) that despite the move away from the Eurovision norm in terms of performance in Melodifestivalen it remains a very contest-friendly song and (b) the 'popera' genre is one with a proven track record, with both Slovenia and Latvia qualifying in 2007 (the latter, albeit, in sub-Il Divo fashion (if such a thing exists)). Both did so from much later starting positions, but La Voix is the kind of song that should be immune to the caprice of the draw since, as ever with Sweden, it is impeccably, if at times economically, produced. It would be ironic (or perhaps apt) if they were to come unstuck having been forced to remodel the song for the Eurovision stage, but it would also be a surprise.