LISBON: A few weeks ago, Salvador Sobral, the 27-year-old Portuguese crooner who won Saturday’s Eurovision Song Contest, was an unknown artist waiting for a heart transplant.
But his intimate rendering of the melancholic “Amar Pelos Dois” (For the Both of Us) written by his older sister Luisa — a success in her own right — scored a huge victory in the kitschy contest in Kiev.
At first glance, his decision to forgo the elaborate choreography and heavy dance tempos favored by most contestants had made him a long shot.
Shunning English to sing in a Portuguese tremolo that reflects a severe heart condition would also seem to bode ill for the Lisbon native, whose beard and ponytail make him look more of a hipster than a budding pop star.
“I don’t like pointless ‘fast food’ music, my songs have to have meaning, I sing with my heart,” he said recently.
Sobral’s low-key performance beat more traditionally flamboyant acts like bookmakers’ favorite Italian Francesco Gabbani, as well as Azerbaijan’s entry featuring a man on a stepladder wearing a horse’s head.
Ahead of the final, Sobral held a press conference wearing a sweatshirt calling attention to the plight of refugees, saying he was not only taking part in the contest to sing.
“When I learned that I was going to participate at Eurovision I first thought about the refugees, because they leave their country to escape death,” he said.
Sobral himself cannot go anywhere for more than two weeks without his medicine, and he did not attend earlier rehearsals in Kiev because of health worries.
But he plays down his heart ailment, even though he is still waiting for a transplant.
“The disease is a small problem, really, certainly the only one I have in my life.”
Portugal’s big-hearted crooner wins Eurovision
Portugal’s big-hearted crooner wins Eurovision
