After winning Eesti Laul 2018, Estonian soprano Elina Nechayeva and her team are preparing themselves for the Eurovision stage. Yet, will the iconic lava-dress make it to Lisbon?

Eesti Laul 2018, Estonia’s selection for Eurovision 2018, reached an exciting conclusion as soprano Elina Nechayeva took the victory with her enigmatic Italian-language song La forza. In the days that followed her victory, Elina and her team started making their stage plans for Eurovision 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal.

Lava-dress left behind?

Elina Nechayeva gave a powerful vocal performance of La forza, amplified by a special dress which captures projections of lava and natural landscapes. The act reinforces Elina’s stage presentation, visualizing her as a force of nature.

However, some concerns arose about whether the dress would accompany the singer to Lisbon, as the costs for the Eurovision stage exceed those of the national final. However, Eesti Laul’s main producer Mart Normet and Elina’s team are working diligently on the stage performance and they are confident that all will be resolved.

Meanwhile, Elina Nechayeva is balancing a busy schedule, including travelling to Finland, Paris and the United States, with her preparations for Eurovision 2018. Mart Normet is impressed with Elina’s professional work ethos:

Her most important part is working with her own voice and she is also travelling from Estonia. It is important that this song should be known from muscle, in sleep, so if there is no thinking about a special choreography and instruction by the creative team, the main thing that she has to practice is this song. It’s even better and your presentation is more natural to be directly from your heart. This work ethic and the way Elina works, it’s fantastic and highly professional. That’s great.

Estonia and Elina Nechayeva are sure to present a dazzling stage performance in Lisbon!

About Elina Nechayeva

Elina Nechayeva (Tallinn, Estonia, 1991) is an Estonian soprano. She graduated from the Tallinn French School and from the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, with a degree in classical singing.

Participating in various talent shows on television, Elina also worked on her career in theatre.

Venturing into television work, Elina Nechayeva hosted the semi-finals of Eesti Laul 2017 alongside Marko Reikop.

Participating herself in Eesti Laul 2018, Elina Nechayeva won the competition by landslide, thus representing Estonia with the pop-opera crossover song La forza, composed and written by Ksenia Kuchukova, Mihkel Mattisen, Timo Vendt and Elina herself.

Elina Nechayeva will perform La forza in the first half of Semi-Final 1 on Tuesday 8 May 2018.