Croatia: HRT introduces some changes in the national final ‘Dora 2021’
The Croatian broadcaster, HRT, has shared some more details on next year’s national final of Dora 2021 revealing several changes comparing to last year’s edition.
Croatia will be selcting its Eurovision 2021 entry through the national selection of Dora 2021. With the covid-19 pandemic hitting in waves the European continent HRT has introduced some changes to adjust to the current circumstances for security reasons.
Additionally, there can be a maximum of five people on stage (instead of six as before), and all backing vocals will be pre-recorded, not performed live. This is a rule that the Eurovision Song Contest allowed as an option for 2021, and HRT decided to include it in the national final rules.
Changes that are not enforced due to the current pandemic are: it is allowed to sing, apart from Croatian, in any European language (so far the rules allowed only English, Italian, German and French). Everyone can apply for the competition, the applicants should be citizens of the Republic of Croatia and must not be younger than 16 years of age.
The address for applications is https://www.hrt.hr/dora/prijava and the deadline for submissions is December 10 while the Croatian national final will take place 13 February in Opatija.
The Story so far
Croatia participated for the first time at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1993 with the group Put and their song Don’t ever cry. In Eurovision 1996 with Maja Blagdan and in ESC 1999 with Doris Dragovic, the nation finished 4th in the Grand Final, which were the country’s best results up to date in the competition.
In 2018 HRT selected internally Franka Batelic to represent the balkan country in Lisbon with her song Crazy. Despite her dynamic performance she failed to qualify to the Grand Final. In 2019, Croatia determined its Eurovision act through the return of national selection “Dora”. Roko won the national final and represented country at the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest with his entry The Dream. Despite his amazing vocal performance the Croatian artist didn’t make it to the final.
Damir Kedzo has won this year national final with his entry “Divlji Vjetre” but never had the chanece to perform on the Eurovision stage in Rotterdam as the contest was cancelled due to the covid-19 pandemic.
News Source/Image: HRT
