Zagreb 1990

  35º Eurovision Song Contest
 Insieme 1992 (Toto Cotugno) - Italy


The 35th Eurovision Song Contest was held on May 5, 1990 at the Vatroslav Lisinskiin Concert Hall in Zagreb, Yugoslavia (now Croatia's capital). The awards presenters were Helga Vlahović and Oliver Mlakar.

Toto Cutugno was the winner of this Eurovision with the song "Insieme: 1992". This was the second and last victory for Italy to date. The first one being Non ho l'etá, performed by Gigliola Cinquetti in the 1964 contest. The lyrics of several entries celebrated the whirlwind of democratisation that had engulfed central and eastern Europe with bewildering speed in the preceding months, focusing especially on the iconic moment of the Berlin Wall being breached in November 1989. However, the winning song was an even more sweeping evocation of European unity, in anticipation of the completion of the European single market, due at the end of 1992.

A notorious mishap occurred at the start of the first song, when a mysteriously long delay caused by problems with the backing track was followed by the Spanish singers missing their cue as the song didn't start from the very beginning. They walked off the stage in barely concealed annoyance and the audience was left in confusion for a moment, but the song was then restarted without any further problems. This was the first time and still is the only one that a sound problem so serious like this has happened. Spain had already suffered a problem with the sound at the beginning of their song in 1971 and Karina's voice could not be heard for most of the first line. Something similar happened in 1967 to Sandie Shaw.

See you in Rome for the 36th Eurovision Song Contest in 1991