Opera to bop-era: Elina Nechayeva’s “La Forza” gets remixed for the Eurovision 2018 dance floor

The future of her phenomenal projection dress is in doubt. But should Estonia’s Elina Nechayeva be forced to leave her glowing gown at home, at least she can dance her pain away at Euroclub.

That’s because her Eurovision 2018 entry “La Forza” has been remixed especially for the dance floor.

And what entered the DJ’s mixing decks as opera has emerged as an epic bop!

The wonderfully OTT production is laden with trance beats and multiple drops. Meanwhile, Elina’s soprano vocals are warped and stretched beyond human capabilities — on paper that reads so wrong, but it actually sounds so right!

When it comes to Eurovision remixes this is up with the best — think Stormby’s spin on Sanna Nielsen’s “Undo” or the Euroclub mix of John Karayiannis’ “One Thing I Should Have Done”.

Elina Nechayeva “La Forza” (Dance Remix)

https://youtu.be/Iv8YdDTwiiQ

For those wanting more, Elina has also released an extended dance remix. It’s essentially the same again with an extra minute added on. Although a gentle intro and similarly soft conclusion mean it’s not quite so intense.

Elina Nechayeva “La Forza” (Extended Dance Remix)

What’s with the dress?

There has been much fuss made about Portugal’s “back to basics” approach for next month’s contest. Host broadcaster RTP has cut back on many elements which have come to be associated with recent editions, including the use of LEDs.

This means that much of the staging burdens have been pushed back onto the individual competing broadcasters. Where normally they could rely on the host nation to look after certain staging elements, they must now sort them themselves.

And this throws Elina Nechayeva’s projection dress staging into doubt.

That’s because it will cost an eye watering €65,000 for Estonian broadcaster ERR to recreate the national final performance in Lisbon. And the broadcaster doesn’t have the funds to pay it yet.

Estonian Head of Delegation Mart Normet revealed the costs are so high because of the complexity of the performance:

“The most expensive projector to rent on the Estonian market is € 1,100 a day. Eurovision needs a much more powerful projector, which is not available in Estonia. But even if the price is 1100 euros a day, they will need three projectors, which will make it 3300 euros a day.”

The costs are compounded by the amount of time the Estonian delegation needs to rent the projectors for Eurovision. Rehearsals start weeks before the contest itself and to work with the product team the projectors need to be rented for almost a month.

The Estonian team also need to fly in the projection video artist so that the design for the performance can be done.

But, with Estonia flying high in the odds to win Eurovision, Normet believes the dress is worth the money. The question now is how ERR can find the money to fund the performance.

Follow all of our Estonia Eurovision 2018 news.