The Eurovision Song Contest 1991 was the 36th edition held on 4 May 1991. San Remo, where the concept of the contest was born, was to be the intended host city, but due to the mounting tensions of the Gulf War, it was moved to the Cinecittà movie studios in Rome which was perceived to be more secure. It was co-hosted by Italy's two previous Eurovision winners Gigliola Cinquetti and Toto Cutugno, the latter having won in Zagreb the previous year. The Netherlands had withdrawn due to the observance of a national holiday, but Malta was making its return after a long absence.
The inter-song postcards were cleverly done: each artist was asked to sing a well-known Italian song as famous Italian landmarks that best represented their individual personalities were superimposed in the background.
At the conclusion of voting, Sweden and Amina Annabi of France were tied with 146 points each, the second tie since the infamous four-way of 1969. Starting the count-back procedure, both had 4 sets of 12-point scores, but when it came to the 10-point scores the advantage swung towards Sweden, who had 5 sets of 10s compared to 2 sets for France (under the current tiebreaker rules, France would have won due to one more country voting for it - 18 nations compared to 17 for Sweden).
This count-back gave Sweden its third victory with the song Fångad av en stormvind performed by Carola. On the other hand, a bit further down the scoreboard, Thomas Forstner of Austria had Nul Points with the song Venedig im Regen, only 2 years after he finished in the top 5 in Lausanne.
Incidents[]
Many incidents, both logistical and technical, plagued this edition. Due to the last-minute move to Rome, the stage sets were hastily put together, and heavy rain during the week delayed the orchestra and many of the delegations for their scheduled rehearsals.
The Greek entry's performance was hampered by the orchestra's saxophone player, the Luxembourg entry was interrupted by a broken guitar string, and during the Swedish performance, the sound failed inside the venue (however, the juries and the television audience could hear everything perfectly).
Additionally, hosts Cinquetti and Cutugno, despite their first-hand knowledge as past Eurovision winners, had very little to no grasp of the EBU's official languages of English and French, choosing to do the majority of their presenting duties in Italian.
Participants[]
| Draw | Country | Artist | Song | Language | Translation | Place | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 |  Yugoslavia
|
Baby Doll | Brazil | Serbian | -- | 21 | 1 |
| 02 |  Iceland
|
Stefán & Eyfi | Draumur um Nínu | Icelandic | Dream of Nina | 15 | 26 |
| 03 |  Malta
|
Georgina & Paul | Could It Be | English | -- | 6 | 106 |
| 04 |  Greece
|
Sophia Vossou | I anixi | Greek | Spring | 13 | 36 |
| 05 |  Switzerland
|
Sandra Simó | Canzone per te | Italian | Song for you | 5 | 118 |
| 06 |  Austria
|
Thomas Forstner | Venedig im Regen | German | Venice in the rain | 22 | 0 |
| 07 |  Luxembourg
|
Sarah Bray | Un baiser volé | French | A stolen kiss | 14 | 29 |
| 08 |  Sweden
|
Carola | Fångad av en stormvind | Swedish | Captured by a stormwind | 1 | 146 |
| 09 |  France
|
Amina Annabi | Le dernier qui a parlé... | French | The last one who spoke... | 2 | 146 |
| 10 |  Türkiye
|
İzel, Reyhan & Can | İki Dakika | Turkish | Two minutes | 12 | 44 |
| 11 |  Ireland
|
Kim Jackson | Could It Be That I'm In Love | English | -- | 10 | 47 |
| 12 |  Portugal
|
Dulce Pontes | Lusitana paixão | Portuguese | Lusitanian passion | 8 | 62 |
| 13 |  Denmark
|
Anders Frandsen | Lige der hvor hjertet slår | Danish | Where the heart beats | 19 | 8 |
| 14 |  Norway
|
Just 4 Fun | Mrs. Thompson | Norwegian | -- | 17 | 14 |
| 15 |  Israel
|
Duo Datz | Kan | Hebrew | Here | 3 | 139 |
| 16 |  Finland
|
Kaija Kärkinen | Hullu yö | Finnish | A crazy night | 20 | 6 |
| 17 |  Germany
|
Atlantis 2000 | Dieser Traum darf niemals sterben | German | This dream may never die | 18 | 10 |
| 18 |  Belgium
|
Clouseau | Geef het op | Dutch | Give it up | 16 | 23 |
| 19 |  Spain
|
Sergio Dalma | Bailar Pegados | Spanish | Dancing closely | 4 | 119 |
| 20 |  United Kingdom
|
Samantha Janus | A Message To Your Heart | English | -- | 10 | 47 |
| 21 |  Cyprus
|
Elena Patroklou | SOS | Greek | 9 | 60 | |
| 22 |  Italy
|
Peppino di Capri | Comme è ddoce 'o mare | Neapolitan | How sweet is the sea? | 7 | 89 |
Trivia[]
- 1991 featured some similarities to the 1983 contest eight years prior:
- Both editions feature Carola with a microphone/sound failure.
- In both Greek entries, a saxophonist bungled his notes.
- Both had hosts whose command of another language was not up to par, and therefore made the voting go on longer than expected.
- Both top threes featured Carola, Israel with a patriotic song, and a French-language song.
- Both runners-up from the previous year would write a song for their country this year.
- In addition, Danijel Popović participated in Jugovizjia in 1991, but came in second place to Baby Doll.
- Also, the top three this year shares similarities to that of Eurovision Song Contest 2004:
- The winners were both popular female singers in their countries, with high-tempo songs and intense choreography.
- The runners-up were low-key ethno-influenced songs which set a future trend in contests; both songs also got votes from more countries than the winner.
- The third-placers were uptempo songs with ethnic elements which became classics in their respective countries
- Comme è ddoce 'o mare was the first host entry to perform last in the running order.
- This was the last time where the branding would be in another language (in this case, Italian). From 1992 onwards, the logo would be in English only.
- This was the last time Richard Oesterreicher conducted for Austria.
