Jamala, Conchita Wurst and others: which stars will perform at the opening of Eurovision 2023 and why Ruslana was outraged by this list

On May 7, the grand opening of the 67th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 will take place in Liverpool, United Kingdom, in cooperation with last year's winner Ukraine. The organisers have announced the world celebrities who will greet Euro fans and participants before the semi-finals and final.

The "Great Eurovision Welcome" will take place at St George's Hall in Liverpool. The list of artists has been posted by the contest organisers on its official website.

More than 30 thousand viewers are expected to attend the 90-minute spectacle, and the star-studded line-up that will welcome them to the host city looks unforgettable.

For example, the winner of the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest, People's Artist of Ukraine Jamala, will take to the stage.

She will be accompanied by the outrageous Conchita Wurst, the winner of the 2014 competition. The Austrian representative will perform her hits, delighting fans with her impeccable vocals and colourful show.

The audience will also be entertained by representatives of Liverpool itself - successful and famous bands from this city Lightning Seeds, Atomic Kitten and The Real Thing. The event will also feature a special performance by Liverpool's Frankie Goes To Hollywood after their huge success in the 80s with hits such as Relax and The Power Of Love.

Earlier, it became known which of the Ukrainian stars will perform at the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 final. Tina Karol, Verka Serdyuchka and other artists from last year's shows will appear on stage. This list, as well as the list of stars who will open the contest, does not include Ruslana, the 2004 winner. Back then, she won with her incendiary hit "Wild Dances" and brought Ukraine its first ever statuette from the prestigious song contest.

Ruslana did not remain silent about this. She wrote an outrageous post on her Instagram, saying that she had not been invited to perform at the show. The singer, as she said herself, is involved in additional events within the framework of Eurovision, but she will not be seen on stage at the opening, semi-finals and final.

"So far, I have not received any offer or official invitation from the organisers - the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine, Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine, and BBC Eurovision... In Liverpool, I have already confirmed my participation in two side events (additional activities at venues that work for Euro fans and guests of Liverpool), one of them is a collaboration with the English National Opera, and I will write about the second one later. I live and create for Ukraine. If we do not remember our victories, it will be difficult for us to win in the future. But we must also remember our defeats in order to prevent them from happening again, for this is why we are writing history, which we will never allow to be rewritten," Ruslana said.

Representatives of Suspilne have already responded to her speech. They assured us that Ruslana is on the programme of the competition, and she and her team are aware of this. However, they are probably talking about the same additional performances at venues in Liverpool. The organisers announced that information about the involvement of certain artists in the show is confidential, but at the same time they immediately revealed that Ruslana was going to be invited to perform in the final.

"The detailed information about the artists involved is confidential until it is officially released by the organiser. Today, we can only emphasise that Ruslana will perform in a number of formats that will take place before and during the Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool, including the final. As far as we know, the BBC intends to include Ruslana in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 final," the broadcaster said in a statement.

Recall that the first and second semi-finals will take place on May 9 and 11, and the final - on May 13, 2023.

Ukraine will be represented at this year's contest by the TVORCHI duo, which recently presented an updated version of the song they will perform in Liverpool. The musicians listened to the advice and comments from Ukrainians, so they changed the track slightly.

TVORCHI will go to the UK with the English-language song Heart of Steel, written under the influence of the war. According to the performers, they were inspired to create the song by the unbreakable spirit of Azovstal's defenders. The Ukrainians will automatically qualify for the final on 13 May as the winning country.

Earlier, OBOZREVATEL wrote about the number under which Ukraine's representatives will perform on May 13. You can find out the details in our article.

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