At the end of January RTP, the Portuguese broadcaster, had an online voting to determine the 24 songs that would take part in the two semifinals. Tonight the first of these took place in Campo Pequeno in Lisbon in a show presented by Silvia Alberto and the 6 songs with the highest number of televotes proceeded to the final (in order of appearance, qualifiers in bold):
Nucha - Chuva
Ouro - Arco-Íris Dentro De Mim
Claudisabel - Contra Tudo E Todos
Filipa Azevedo - Há Dias Assim
Jorge Guerreiro - Ai Lisboa
Dennisa - Meu Mundo De Sonhos
Nuno Pinto - Fogo Lento
Filipa Galvão Telles - O Amor Não Sabe
The Agency - É Assim Que As Coisas São
Gonçalo Madruga - Cores De Um Mundo
Evelyne Filipe - A Tua Voz
Vanessa - Alvorada
The show was the very first entertainment programme to be broadcast in high definition by RTP. Nucha represented Portugal in Zagreb in 1990 with the song Há Sempre Alguém while Evelyne Filipe was a backing singer for Vânia Fernandes in Belgrade in 2008. None of them was lucky enough to reach the final. Vanessa, who has taken part in the national selection twice before, was luckier; she was the replacement act after one of the original 24 selected songs was disqualified and now her Alvorada is one of the 12 finalist songs.
The order in which the songs will be performed in the final will alternate one song from each semi-final. Tonight's songs get the uneven slots and Thursday's qualifiers will get the even places:
Filipa Galvão Telles
From second semi-final
Jorge Guerreiro
From second semi-final
The Agency
From second semi-final
Nuno Pinto
From second semi-final
Filipa Azevedo
From second semi-final
Vanessa
From second semi-final
The second semi-final takes place in only two days time, next Thursday the 4th with the final being on Saturday the 6th of March.
Flor-de-lis were last year's Portuguese entry and got to the Final of the Eurovision Song Contest with Todas As Ruas Do Amor which came 15th. In 1996 Portugal achieved its best result ever, a 6th place, with O Meu Coração Não Tem Cor by Lúcia Moniz.
