The news that broke on Friday, that six of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest participants – including Malta’s Morena – will pose wearing only their national flag in the Alo! daily newspaper, has been strongly denied by all delegations.

It was Maltese website maltamedia.com that claimed Morena will pose wearing only the Maltese flag and that Ani Lorak from Ukraine, Kalomira from Greece, Joanna from Bulgaria, Charlotte Perrelli from Sweden and Isis Gee from Poland would all do the same.

esctoday.com yesterday spoke to several of the delegations involved and all have denied any knowledge of the plan.

While it is true that they have all agreed to photo shoots with the paper, none are aware of any plan to pose wearing only their country’s flags. The Greek delegation has immediately denied any knowledge of such a plan and has said that under no circumstances would they agree to it.

A spokesperson for the Swedish delegation also stated that they had agreed to a photo shoot but at no point had they been made aware of a plan for Charlotte Perrelli to pose wearing only the Swedish flag and they would never agree to such a pose.

Reporting for The Times from Belgrade, journalist Ariadne Massa wrote yesterday that Morena was due to be taken to the offices of Alo! (a daily tabloid in Belgrade) for a photo-shoot but said nothing her about posing in the nude.

Meanwhile, Morena has also been partying hard: she sang at a Greek and Cypriot party and yesterday evening was due to attend a party thrown at the Euroclub by Ukraine.

According to Eurovision.tv, Morena had an excellent first rehearsal on Wednesday afternoon at the Belgrade Arena.

Morena is backed by a female vocalist and four male dancers. The dancers’ choreography is up-tempo and tailored for the song, that certainly will not be boring for the audience at the second semi-final on Thursday.

The four male dancers all wore black sunglasses and Morena wore long, high-heeled boots decorated with small mirrors. The outfits for the live performance were revealed, and the theme is black with silver and black glitter. Moreover, the dancers will wear dark suits.

At the press conference after Morena’s rehearsal, she told fans and the accredited press that participating in the Eurovision Song Contest “is a dream come true”. And the Maltese delegation elaborated on the meaning of the song, which is about Morena being a spy in a Russian setting where vodka is a secret code.

A journalist asked whether Morena had ever worked with the dancers before, but was told that this is actually the first time, and that she is very satisfied. Morena also revealed that her stage name stems from the fact that she once told some foreigners that she was Spanish, and those foreigners then called her “Morena” (“the dark one” in Spanish). Her real name is Margherita.

The Irish Eurovision site Allkindsofeverything.ie reported that Morena concentrates on singing and lets the four hunky dancers do all the work. They certainly work very hard in those three minutes – there is lots of folded arms, with high kicks, frantic jumping around and the whole thing is very well put together.