Eurovision Song Contest 1956
The Eurovision Song Contest 1956 was the inaugural edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Lugano, Switzerland, and was held at the Teatro Kursaal on Thursday 24 May 1956
Organised by the European Broadcasting Union, the pan-European music competition was inspired by the Italian Sanremo Music Festival. Lohengrin Filipello hosted the first contest which lasted approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes. Seven countries participated, with each of them performing two songs. Two jury members from all participating countries cast their votes in secret, based on which song was their favourite.
This first edition of the Eurovision Song Contest included several procedures that were not repeated in any subsequent edition: Two songs for each country, secret voting, double voting of one country on behalf of another, optional inclusion of the jury members' own represented country in their voting, only "Grand Prix" title reception for the winner.
Background and location
During a meeting in Monaco in 1955, members of the European Broadcasting Union discussed ideas to organise a pan-European music competition, taking inspiration from Italy's Sanremo Music Festival. From that meeting, the concept of the Eurovision Song Contest was born. A decision was reached to hold the first ever contest the following year in Lugano, Switzerland. Lugano, located in the Italian speaking canton of Ticino in southern Switzerland, is the 9th largest Swiss city and the largest with an Italian speaking majority outside Italy.The inaugural Eurovision Song Contest took place at the Teatro Kursaal, a casino and former theatre, on 24 May 1956. The theatre, designed by Italian architect Achille Sfondrini, was used for theatrical and musical performances, ballroom dance and other shows. The theatre closed shortly after the last show in April 1997 and was demolished in 2001 to make room for the extension of the Casino. Now known as Casinò Lugano, it opened again on 29 November 2002.
Format
The programme was hosted in Italian by Lohengrin Filipello, making it the only Eurovision Song Contest to have a solo male presenter and up until the 2017 edition with a male trio, the only edition without a female presenter. The programme lasted approximately an hour and 40 minutes. Although it was mainly a radio programme, there were cameras in the studio for the benefit of those who possessed a television.Only solo artists were allowed to enter the contest, and their songs were not to exceed three and a half minutes in length. They were accompanied by a 24-musician orchestra, which was led by Fernando Paggi, along with four guest conductors, which came from Belgium, France, Luxembourg and Italy. The interval act, whistling by the Joyeux Rossignols, had to be extended due to a delay in the voting procedure. It had been strongly recommended that each participating country have a preliminary national song contest.
Voting controversy
Two jury members from each participating country travelled to Lugano to cast their vote on the songs, except for Luxembourg which was unable to send juries. The EBU conducted a secret voting and a system allowing the juries to also vote for the two songs representing their own country, as well as allowing the Swiss jury to vote on behalf of Luxembourg. Claims were raised that the Swiss entry won as a result of these procedures. This system was never repeated, as from the second edition of the contest onwards the voting is visible, excludes the jury's own competing country from their voting and includes individual jury members for each country.While the results have never been officially released or confirmed, the 25 May 1956 issue of the Italian newspaper La Stampa, published the day after the contest, claimed that each jury member ranked each song between 1 and 10 points, meaning each song could have obtained a maximum of 120 to 140 points; depending on whether jury members also voted for their own country's two songs, and that the winner, "Refrain", got in total 102 points, 72.8% of the theoretical votes available for each song
Lost tapes
While the contest was shown and recorded for television broadcasting in some European countries, no copies have survived, with the exception of Lys Assia's repeat performance at the end of the contest. It is one of only two contests to not have survived completely, along with the one of 1964.Participating countries
Seven countries participated in the first ever contest, each were represented with two songs. Two more countries, Austria and Denmark, were also expected to take part in the contest, but they missed the submission deadline and therefore could not take part. Although it was thought that the were also expected to take part, it was later revealed by the EBU in January 2017 that it was a mythical fact created by fans of the contest. The EBU further went on to explain that the "Festival of British Popular Song", a contest created by the BBC for the United Kingdom, was the inspiration that brought in changes to the contest format from.Conductors
Each performance had a maestro who conducted the orchestra. The conductors listed conducted both performances for the indicated countries.- – Fernando Paggi
- – Fernando Paggi
- – Léo Souris
- – Fernando Paggi
- – Franck Pourcel
- – Jacques Lassry
- – Gian Stellari
Results
| Draw | Country | Artist | Song | Language | Place |
| 01 | Jetty Paerl | "De vogels van Holland" | Dutch | ||
| 02 | Lys Assia | "Das alte Karussell" | German | ||
| 03 | Fud Leclerc | "Messieurs les noyés de la Seine" | French | ||
| 04 | Walter Andreas Schwarz | "Im Wartesaal zum großen Glück" | German | ||
| 05 | Mathé Altéry | "Le temps perdu" | French | ||
| 06 | Michèle Arnaud | "Ne crois pas" | French | ||
| 07 | Franca Raimondi | "Aprite le finestre" | Italian | ||
| 08 | Corry Brokken | "Voorgoed voorbij" | Dutch | ||
| 09 | Lys Assia | "Refrain" | French | 1 | |
| 10 | Mony Marc | "Le plus beau jour de ma vie" | French | ||
| 11 | Freddy Quinn | "So geht das jede Nacht" | German | ||
| 12 | Dany Dauberson | "Il est là" | French | ||
| 13 | Michèle Arnaud | "Les amants de minuit" | French | ||
| 14 | Tonina Torrielli | "Amami se vuoi" | Italian |