🇦🇱 TES Preview: Slick and sassy for Ronela Hajati

Today rehearsals for the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 kicked off. Countries rehearsing on Day 1 include Albania, Latvia, Lithuania, Switzerland, Slovenia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, The Netherlands, and Moldova. First to rehearse today was Albania’s Ronela Hajati.

Ronela Hajati’s first rehearsal

The first to take to the Eurovision 2022 stage at the Pala Alpitour in Turin was Albania’s Ronela Hajati. Ronela will sing the song “SEKRET” at Eurovision 2022 after she won their selection Festivali i Këngës back in December last year.

Following Ronela’s first rehearsal a clip of her rehearsal was posted on TikTok. The clip showed Ronela before and after she took to the Eurovision stage for the first time. The clip also gave us some insight into how well her first rehearsal went.

@eurovision The Sekret’s out! Check out this exclusive look at @Ronela Hajati’s first rehearsal on the #Eurovision stage! 🇦🇱🦅 #Eurovision2022 #tiktokeurovision ♬ original sound – Eurovision

What did we learn about Ronela’s staging?

Four dancers male dancers and one female dancer join Ronela on the Eurovision stage. This looks like the perfect opener for Tuesday night’s semi-final. Ronela has dyed her hair light baby pink, she is wearing a pink eyeshadow to match this, it’s a very pretty look. The performance is packed full of energy and sass, you can tell Ronela knows how to work a stage. For this rehearsal, Ronela is in a sparkly bikini-type top. She is wearing black tights and black boots. The staging has dark blues and hot pinks, there seems to be a bit of a water theme going on. It seems there is no fire or pyro in Albania’s staging however they do make use of the waterfall.

What we thought of Albania’s first rehearsal

After Ronela’s first rehearsal Tim gave his initial thoughts on the snippet that we saw.

@thateurosite #stitch with @eurovision We just saw a bit of @Ronela Hajati’s rehearsal for #Eurovision, and here’s what we thought #fyp #foryou #Albania #RonelaHajati ♬ original sound – thateurosite

About Ronela Hajati

Ronela has been making music from a young age, and rose to prominence in Albania during the early 2010s. Her appearances on shows such as Top Fest and Kënga Magjike helped to propel her into the limelight, and she saw chart success in Albania with songs including “Mala Gata”, “Mos ma lsho” and “Marre”.

Despite this success, her first studio album, “RRON” was not released until 2021. However, it was worth the wait, with singles “Prologue” and “Aventura” reaching numbers 2 and 3 on the Albanian charts respectively. It was following this that she was selected to participate in the 60th edition of Festivali i Këngës – and the rest from there is history!

Albania’s Eurovision Journey

Albania made their debut at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2004 with Anheza Shahini with “Image of You” which managed to place 7th in the final. Since their debut, Albania has participated 17 times and qualified the final 10 times; their best result came in 2012 when Rona Nishliu placed 5th with “Suus”.

In 2021, Anxhela Peristeri represented Albania with “Karma”, which gave the country its third straight grand final qualification and finished in 21st place with 57 points. Coincidentally, it was also their third song in a row to be sung in Albanian.

What are your opinions on Ronela’s first rehearsal? What changes would you make? Let us know in the comments or on social media. Be sure to follow ‘That Eurovision Site’ on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

News Source: EBU

Photo Source: Renijar Locaj