Eva Rivas heads to Eurovision
Russian-Armenian to represent Armenia in pan-European song contest
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Published: Saturday February 20, 2010
Yerevan – Choosing among nine finalists Armenians picked 22-year-old
Eva Rivas, a tall Angelina Jolie look-alike with powerful vocals, as
Armenia’s next representative at the Eurovision, a popular
pan-European music contest.
During February 14 national final, Ms. Rivas performed a soulful
pop-folk song Apricot Stone composed by Armen Martirosian and with
lyrics by Karen Kavalerian on a theme of Diasporan’s longing for
Armenia.
The Russian-Armenian beat the Los Angeles-based duo Mihran and Emmy
with their dance number Hey (let me hear you say)! The latter
protested the outcome and their supporters speculated that public
voting conducted via SMS was skewed in Ms. Rivas’ favor.
But most music fans appeared to have dismissed the protests, with Ms.
Rivas emerging as a favorite well before the vote. As of this week,
the Apricot Stone video clocked more than 150,000 YouTube hits with
Ms. Rivas’ earlier performance of Sayat Nova’s Tamam Ashkhar – more
than 135,000.
By comparison, top videos Emmy and Mihran’s Hey! got about 70,000 hits.
As in years past, the contest was organized by Armenia’s Public
television and vote count was monitored by Grant Thornton Amyot
auditors.
A Rostov Armenian
Ms. Rivas was born Valeria Reshetnikova to a Russian-Armenian family
in Rostov-on-Don, a city with large and historic Armenian presence.
"I am 75 percent Armenian and I feel Armenian," Ms. Reshetnikova told
Panorama.am in a recent interview.
According to her web site and reporting by Gazeta
Dona, a Rostov newspaper, while only eight years old Lera (short for
Valeria) began singing with a local Armenian ensemble Arevik that
performed classical, church and pop music. Appearing in youth
festivals in Russia, Lera and Arevik won numerous awards and
commendations.
In addition to singing, the tall brunette with striking looks modeled
and participated in a number of beauty pageants. In 2005 she was
selected as runner up in the "Miss Caucasus" competition held in
Yerevan.
At the same time, Ms. Reshetnikova launched her solo music career,
performing one of Sayat Nova’s Armenian classics at a Moscow music
festival and recording several Russian-language songs.
Since leaving Rostov in 2006, Ms. Reshetnikova adopted her ethnic
Greek grandmother’sname, Eva Rivas, as her stage name.
After winning a third spot at the Russian "Five stars" competition in
2007, Ms. Rivas said her goal was to sing at Eurovision.
"I always achieve what I set out to do," she reportedly said at the
time. And now Ms. Rivas has taken aim at the top spot of the
Eurovision competition in Norway next May.