Five more Croatian hopefuls progress

A total of 24 contestants began their quest a fortnight ago to become Croatia's representative in this years Eurovision Song Contest. In the first two shows, 11 artists already knew they had successfully made it to this weeks third heat.

At the beginning of the show it was confirmed that the 12th and final contestant who was successful in last weeks show, and would be performing again tonight was Darija Kinzer.

Therefore, tonights line up and their chosen songs were as follows (Qualifiers in bold) :-

Mirko Švenda-Ziga (Elton John – I’m Still Standing)
Doris Teur (Cacadou Look – Tako Lako)
Saša Lozar (Simply Red – Stars)
Dora Benc (Detour – Mjesec)
Sabrina Hebiri (Duffy – Mercy)
Miro Tomic (Songkillers – Nitko Kao Ti)
Jacques Houdek (Richard Marx – Right Here Waiting)
Katica Marinovic  (Colonia – Vatra I Led)
Tina Vukov (Oceana – Cry, Cry)
Jelena Vanjek (Amy Winehouse – Valerie)
Ana Eškinja (Lady Gaga – Alejandro)
Darija Kinzer (Parni Valjak - Ugasi Me)

With it's new and revitalised format, Dora 2011 has turned out to be a big success, with the added suspense that each week viewers would have to wait another seven days to find out who the last qualifier to progress to the following week was.

Familiar faces in expert jury

The expert jury this week was one with a rich pedigree of Eurovision Song Contest experience between them, and consisted of Croatia's joint most successful representative Maja Blagdan who achieved 4th place in 1996, Tereza Kesovija who represented Monaco in 1966 and Yugoslavia in 1972 and Hari Varešanović, the lead singer of Hari Mata Hari, who achieved Bosnia & Herzegovina's record third place in the 2006 contest.

Hari gave a rousing rendition of Lejla, his 2006 entry followed by Maja Blagdan performing Sveta Ljubav, her entry from 1996.

Sixth qualifier announced next week

The five lucky qualifiers now progress to the fourth week, where they will be joined by another contestant from tonights show, to be announced at the beginning of the next show. In next weeks show, two more artists will be eliminated, leaving four acts standing in week five. Then, two more will be voted out and the remaining two artists will battle it out on March 5th to win the Croatian ticket to Düsseldorf.

Croatia will participate in the second half of the First Semi-Final on Tuesday May 10th in Germany.