Eurovision Song Contest 1991
36th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest

The Eurovision Song Contest 1991 was the 36th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, held on 4 May 1991 at Stage 15 of the Cinecittà Studios in Rome, Italy, and presented by Gigliola Cinquetti and Toto Cutugno. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Radiotelevisione italiana (RAI), who staged the event after winning the 1990 contest for Italy with the song "Insieme: 1992" by Cutugno. Cinquetti had also won the contest for Italy in 1964.
Broadcasters from twenty-two countries participated in the contest, with Malta making its first appearance in sixteen years, having last participated in 1975, while the Netherlands decided not to participate because the date of the event coincided with the country's Remembrance of the Dead commemorations. It was also the first time that Germany was represented as a single state following the reunification of East and West Germany.
For the first time since 1969, the contest resulted in a draw for first place, with both France and Sweden being awarded the same number of points. The contest's tie-break procedure was implemented for the first time in its history, which resulted in Sweden being declared the winner because its entry, "Fångad av en stormvind", written by Stephan Berg and performed by Carola, had received a greater number of top scores from the other competing countries than the French entry; it was Sweden's third win in the contest overall. Alongside France, Israel, Spain and Switzerland rounded out the top five.
Location
The 1991 contest took place in Rome, Italy, following the country's victory at the 1990 contest with the song "Insieme: 1992", performed by Toto Cutugno. It was the second time that Italy had hosted the contest, following the 1965 event held in Naples.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Eurovision Song Contest 1991” is 36th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Eurovision, Song and Contest, not as a finished interpretation.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q208523. Authority coordinates are 41.850, 12.567. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1991, 1990, 1992 and 1964.
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This entry incorporates text from “Eurovision Song Contest 1991” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.