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 Eurovision Song Contest winner
Netta Barzilai is instantly recognizable on the
streets of the Israeli city she calls home.
More than 200 million people watched the
flamboyant singer-songwriter win the 2018
pageant with the women's empowerment song "TOY".
With an extrovert performing style, the
28-year-old was building a career based on a
personal bond with audiences when, as suddenly
as international success arrived, it was put on
hold.
The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked far worse
damage on lives, health and careers than an
interruption of travel and live performance, as
Barzilai knows.
But as she walked through the quiet streets of
Tel Aviv, she reflected on how human connections
had been ruptured, and the role that art and
music can play in helping millions across the
world live through the shock of change.
"I was promoting my new single in January in
Russia and in Spain and I was planning to go to
six other countries. And then everything
stopped," she said during a break from writing
new material.
"There are more barriers now that we're going to
have to learn how to break. We're going to have
to find inspiration within, and look for a
deeper content."
After a whirlwind post-Eurovision year of
touring the world and barely seeing her home
city, then trying to build upon that success,
Barzilai said quarantine was a chance to slow
down and pay more attention to her immediate
surroundings.
"I had nowhere to run, no bar to go sing at, no
friends to meet and I just needed a way to
engage with my fans and to engage with my
audience," she said.
'ENORMOUS HUG'
The answer was at hand. She had already begun
experimenting with a video podcast from the
balcony room studio in her Tel Aviv apartment.
So she adapted that, adding the coronavirus to
the mix of talk and music, and working on an
album for the post-pandemic era.
"Hey everybody. I can't believe corona's still
here," she declared in "I'm Blue", Episode 4 of
"Netta's Office" which was posted on YouTube in
May.
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 "I've been doing a lot of
internet performances ... it's really weird for
me to not feel the crowd, to not feel the people
in front of me."
The idea, she said, was simple.
"I figured out all I needed was this room ...
and people have been giving me this enormous hug
(for) helping them through their anxieties,
through their worries. Because this uncertainty
can absolutely kill us." Around
her flat overlooking a central Tel Aviv side
street were reminders of the recent past:
costumes and clothing, Eurovision paraphernalia
and tchotchkes - trinkets and souvenirs - from
her travels.
Her most recent release is 'Cuckoo'. It was
written before the pandemic but the words of the
chorus - "I'm like a bird in a cage" - assumed
new resonance upon its release in May.
"The melody turns inside in a loop ... Like the
melody is caged. And like this beautiful sad
rhyme is caged," she said.
Walking past Israel's shuttered national theatre
- whose website still bears the notice 'Closed
until further notice' - Barzilai enthuses about
the artistic, creative and financial importance
to society of her profession.
"Yesterday I had a conversation with one of my
former employees ... He had saved up and it's
just about ending, and he couldn't feed his
children," she said.
 "[He's] a sound man with three children, and our
government and a lot of governments around the
world don't have solutions yet for the culture
industry."
(Reporting by Rinat Harash; Writing by Stephen
Farrell; Editing by Mike Collett-White)
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