Croatia Sends One Man Duetting With Himself

MAY 15 2017 · 12:05

Jacques Houdek · "My Friend" · Croatia · 2017 Placement: 13 · Score: 128 · Language: English, Italian · Composers: Jacques Houdek, Fabrizio Laucella, Siniša Reljić, Ines Prajo · Venue: International Exhibition Centre · Host: Kyiv, Ukraine · Type: performance innovation · Broadcast: streaming era Jacques Houdek — Croatian-Swiss tenor, 36 — performs 'My Friend' as an operatic-pop duet entirely with himself. He switches between his pop chest voice in English and his classical tenor in Italian mid-song, the lighting shifting to reinforce the 'two Jacques' illusion. Backup vocals harmonize with both his modes. The performance is technically unusual and visually distinctive. 128 points for 13th place. Context Houdek had been a Croatian-Swiss music theatre singer with classical training and a mainstream pop parallel career. The self-duet was conceived specifically as a demonstration of his dual-mode vocal identity. Croatia's selection process Dora had gone through public-televote in Houdek's favor. Legacy The self-duet staging is now a standard reference in Eurovision genre-fusion discussions. Houdek continued a Croatian recording career across both classical and pop idioms. 'My Friend' charted in Croatia, Italy, and Switzerland. The 13th-place result was considered successful given the unconventional approach.