Eurovision Song Contest 1956

The Eurovision Song Contest 1956 was the first edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest, organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Radio svizzera italiana (RSI) on behalf of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR). The contest, originally titled the Gran premio Eurovisione 1956 della canzone europea (English: Grand Prix of the Eurovision song competition 1956; French: Grand prix Eurovision 1956 de la chanson européenne), was held on 24 May 1956 at the Teatro Kursaal in Lugano, Switzerland, and hosted by Swiss television presenter Lohengrin Filipello, which remains the only time that the contest has been hosted by a solo male presenter.
Inspired principally by the Italian Sanremo Music Festival, held annually since 1951, the concept of a televised European song contest, initially proposed by Italian broadcaster Radiotelevisione italiana (RAI), was formulated by an EBU committee led by Swiss broadcaster and executive Marcel Bezençon. Following approval at the EBU's General Assembly in 1955, the rules and structure of the contest were agreed upon. Several of the rules utilised in this first contest would subsequently be altered for future editions, and it remains the only edition in which each country was represented by two songs, with a voting process which was held in secret and where juries could vote for the entries from their own country.
Seven countries participated in the inaugural edition of the contest, and the first winner was the host country Switzerland, with the song "Refrain" performed by Lys Assia. The result was determined by an assembled jury composed of two jurors from each country, with each juror ranking each song between 1 and 10 points. Only the winning country and song were announced at the conclusion of the event, with the results of the remaining participants unknown. Even though it was broadcast on television via the Eurovision network and radio in ten countries, no video footage of the event is known to exist, with the only video available being of the reprise performance from an independent archiver; the majority of the broadcast is, however, available in audio.
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) was formed in 1950 among 23 organisations with the aim of facilitating creative cooperation and the exchange of television programmes. The word "Eurovision" was first used as a telecommunications term in the United Kingdom in 1951, in reference to a programme by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) being relayed by Dutch television, and was subsequently used as the title for the union's new transmission network upon its creation in 1954. Following the formation of the EBU, a number of notable events were transmitted through its networks in several European countries, including Belgium, France, West Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. A series of international exchange programmes were subsequently organised for 1954, with this "European Television Season" relayed live across Europe through the Eurovision network.
Following this series of transmissions, a "Programme Committee" was set up within the EBU to investigate new initiatives for cooperation between broadcasters each year, with Marcel Bezençon of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR) serving as the committee's first president. This committee agreed to study the concept for a new televised European song contest during a meeting in January 1955, a concept initially proposed by the Italian broadcaster Radiotelevisione italiana (RAI) and inspired by its both the Sanremo Music Festival, held annually since 1951, and the Venice International Song Festival held in 1955 on the radio. The new European contest was subsequently approved at the EBU's annual General Assembly in October 1955, leading to the creation of the European Grand Prix.
The first Eurovision Song Contest took place in Lugano, Switzerland, following an offer by the SRG SSR to stage the event at the EBU's General Assembly in October 1955. In addition, Switzerland was a logical choice from a technical perspective for the hosting of what was a live, simultaneous, cross-border transmission, as its geographically central location in Europe facilitated terrestrial broadcasts across the continent, as well as being the location of the EBU's headquarters. The selected venue for the contest was the Teatro Kursaal, a casino and former theatre situated on Lake Lugano. It had a capacity of 700 seats. 400 seats in the stalls were reserved for invited guests whereas tickets for the balcony were on sale from 17 May 1956 for CHF 20. The theatre, used for theatrical and musical performances, ballroom dance and other shows, closed shortly after featuring its last performance in April 1997 before being demolished in 2001 to make room for the extension of the casino.
Broadcasters from seven countries participated in this first contest – Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland and West Germany (identified simply as "Germany" in the contest). Those from Austria and Denmark are believed to have also been interested in participating; however, they reportedly missed the cut-off point for entry. These two, as well as the BBC in the United Kingdom, would broadcast the contest along with those in the participating countries, with the BBC having chosen to not send an entry for this event in favour of organising their own contest, the Festival of British Popular Songs.
Two of the performers, Switzerland's Lys Assia and Luxembourg's Michèle Arnaud, performed both entries for their respective countries. Assia, as well as the Netherlands' Corry Brokken and Belgium's Fud Leclerc, would return to compete in the contest in future editions, with Assia returning in 1957 and 1958, Brokken also returning in 1957 and 1958, and Leclerc returning in 1958, 1960, and 1962.
A planning sub-group, headed by Eduard Hass of SRG SSR, was formed following the sign-off on the organisation of the event to build out the rules of the competition. Taking inspiration from the Sanremo Music Festival and the Venice International Song Festival as a basis in planning the new contest, the group made several amendments and additions to these rules to suit its international nature. Ideas suggested but ultimately rejected during this planning phase included featuring each song a second time with a piano accompaniment instead of orchestral backing, as well as technical initiatives such as a separate producer from each participating broadcaster involved in the contest's organisation. Prize money for the winners was also ruled out at this stage. The rules of the contest were finalised and distributed to EBU members in early 1956. The rules set out in detail the criteria for the participating songs and performers; production details and requirements; timelines for the submission of materials by the participating broadcasters; the method by which the winning song would be determined; details related to the financing of the event; and the responsibilities which lay with the host broadcaster and the participating broadcasters.
The inaugural Eurovision Song Contest was produced by the Italian-language radio broadcaster Radio svizzera italiana (RSI), in cooperation with the television service of SRG SSR, which brought a television production truck from Zurich to Lugano. Franco Marazzi served as director of the event on behalf of RSI, with Rolf Liebermann overseeing the production and the jury deliberations on behalf of the EBU as its executive supervisor and jury president.
Each participating broadcaster submitted into the contest a maximum of two songs not exceeding three to three-and-a-half minutes in duration, which must have been solely original compositions. They had sole discretion on how to select their entries for the contest but were strongly encouraged by the EBU to hold their own national contests to determine their representatives. Following the performance of all songs, the winner was determined by an assembled jury composed of two individuals from each country, with each individual member rating secretly each song between one and ten points, including those representing their own country, with higher scores given to more appreciated songs. The jury followed the contest in the bridge room in the same venue in Lugano through a small television screen, replicating the conditions as close as possible to how viewers at home would watch the contest. The winning song was thus that which gained the highest score from the votes of all jury members. In the event of a tie between two or more entries all songs with the highest score would have been declared winners.
In news reports at the time, according to one Dutch juror, the jury members were removed from the jury room once they had cast their votes and were therefore unable to follow the tabulation of the final results. The jury members from Luxembourg were unable to attend the contest in Lugano, and subsequently the EBU allowed two Swiss nationals to vote in their place. This would remain the only contest in which many of these rules would be utilised, and several changes were made ahead of the 1957 contest. These included restricting each country to only one song, expanding the number of performers allowed to participate for each country, introducing a more visible voting system, and restricting each country from voting for their own entry.
Each song was accompanied by a 24-piece orchestra, with members of the Radiosa Orchestra supplemented by strings of the Italian Swiss Radio Symphony Orchestra, presided over by the contest's musical director, Fernando Paggi. Each participating broadcaster was allowed to supplement the orchestra with their own musical director for the performances of their entries, with the host musical director also conducting for those which did not appoint their own conductor. Broadcasters were required to submit to the EBU by 10 May 1956 scores for their participating songs for use by the orchestra, audio recordings of each song, and copies of the songs lyrics in the original language, as well as translations into French or English to aid the jury members and commentators. The confirmed selection of each country's musical director (if separate to that of the host) was required to be communicated between 21 and 24 May. Rehearsals in the contest venue with the competing artists and the orchestra began on 21 May 1956.
According to the rules, the order in which the countries and songs were performed was to be determined artistically by the host broadcaster, with input and support by the musical directors from each country. However, a draw determining the order of countries seems to have taken place in Gardone a few days prior to the contest.
The contest was held on 24 May 1956, beginning at 21:00 (CET) with an approximate duration of 1 hour 40 minutes. The event was hosted in Italian by Lohengrin Filipello. This remains the only time in which the contest was hosted by a solo male presenter, and one of only two contests not to feature a female presenter, alongside the 2017 contest held 61 years later. Additionally this would remain the only contest to feature a male presenter for 22 years, until the 1978 contest featured a male and female presenting duo.
During the interval between the final competing act and the announcement of the winner, performances by Les Joyeux Rossignols and Les Trois Ménestrels [fr] were featured to entertain the audience, with the latter performing "Guerre de Troie" along with other works. Upon the announcement of the results, the winning artist returned to the stage for a reprise performance of the winning song to end the broadcast.
The winning song was "Refrain", composed by Géo Voumard, written by Émile Gardaz, performed by Lys Assia and representing the host country Switzerland. During the reprise performance of the winning song, Assia became emotional and suffered a lapse in memory of the song's lyrics, subsequently requesting a restart by the orchestra. After the show, a reception for the participating delegations was held in the upper hall of Teatro Kursaal on behalf of the host city Lugano, the canton Ticino, and SRG SSR.
The full results of the contest were not revealed at the time, with only the winning song named at the end of the show by the jury president Rolf Liebermann; the full breakdown of each juror's votes has not been retained by the EBU, and is presumed lost. Attempts to reconstruct the voting through interviews with jury members have also failed to reveal a reliable result. An article in Italian newspaper La Stampa published on 25 May 1956, the day after the contest, reported that Switzerland's winning entry received 102 points in total, while in a post-contest interview with Stelio Molo, the Director General of SRG SSR, published in the Italian magazine Settimana Radio TV in the weeks following the contest, the gap between the first- and second-placed songs was revealed by Molo to be two points, and that the remaining entries also finished close to the winner. These claims have however failed to be corroborated by the contest organisers in the years since.
Broadcasters competing in the event were required to relay the contest via its networks; non-participating EBU member broadcasters were also able to relay the contest. In addition to the television channels of the seven participating broadcasters and three non-participating passive broadcasters, the contest was also broadcast live on seven radio networks and recorded for later transmission by another 13. The United Kingdom's BBC took only partial live transmission of the event, joining 45 minutes into the contest and only showing the second set of entries from each country. Due to a technical fault, the transmission of images was interrupted during Mathé Altéry's performance for about three minutes on German, Danish, and French television.
No video footage of the whole contest is known to exist, with the only known footage being clips of the reprise performance of the winning song via newsreel and other recordings. As such, this is one of only two editions of the contest, along with the 1964 contest, to not have video recordings of the full event retained. Audio of most of the contest has, however, survived, with only the majority of the contest's interval acts currently lost. Attempts to find audiovisual materials related to the contest have yielded some results in recent years, including a large cache of photographs and some video footage taken by Swiss photographer Vincenzo Vicari from inside the venue.
Broadcasters were able to send commentators to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language and to relay information about the artists and songs to their television viewers. Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators, are shown in the tables below.