Winter Olympics opening ceremony review: A sleek

The Olympics are back, carrying their heat Winter Games gear. Although there can be a couple of weeks of sports activities competitions to come, none are potential without an opening ceremony, a mixture of solemn official protocol with a implausible illustration of the host nation’s tradition and character, evoking the Olympic spirit itself. There are few alternatives to mount an leisure of this scale — not even a Super Bowl halftime show can evaluate.

This yr we’re in Italy, for the bi-metropolitan Milan-Cortina video games, held in town’s San Siro Stadium and in the north where the mountains are. The ceremonies, too, have been cut up geographically, with Olympic cauldrons in both cities, with the athletes’ parade additional shared with Livigno and Predazzo, national delegations divided according to where their occasions can be held.

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1. Human bobbleheads of Italian composers Rossini, left, Puccini and Verdi. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times) 2. Dancers on stage in San Siro Stadium. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

The main business passed off in the world. Directed by Marco Balich, who specializes in big reveals, it was elegant, in a sleek, clean-lined Italian means, and over the top, also in an Italian means. Color performed a great half, this system starting in white (a balletic interpretation of Antonio Canova’s sculpture “Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss”), shifting to to black and white (a nod to Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” and its paparazzi), and then to a riot of shade, as giant floating tubes of paint despatched streams of coloured cloth stageward.) There have been dancing human bobbleheads of opera composers Verdi, Puccini and Rossini, as if they have been mascots for Team Rigoletto, Team Tosca and Team William Tell. There have been dancing gladiators and moka pots, a phalanx of runway fashions dressed (in Armani) in inexperienced, white and crimson, to symbolize the Italian flag.

In white and shiny silver, with an ostrich feather boa and a reported $15 million value of diamond jewellery, there was a statuesque, statue-still Mariah Carey, who isn’t Italian, but sang in Italian, the usual “Nel blu, dipinto di blu,” identified right here as “Volare,” which merged into her own “Nothing Is Impossible.” (She must by now be accounted a citizen of the world.) Why did I discover this so shifting? I’m not somebody who ordinarily cares something about Carey, but she was marvelous in this context.

Mariah Carey carried out the Italian tune “Volare,” before main into “Nothing Is Impossible.”

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

The parade of nations is also a fashion show; for whatever purpose, the cold climate gear is usually better wanting than the togs of summer time. (As typical, Ralph Lauren designed the American outfits — white puffy jacket with knit caps of a Scandinavian sample.) As ever, the nations arrived alphabetically (aside from Greece, who always will get to march first; Italy, coming in last as the host nation; France, in penultimate place as the host of the next Winter Games; and the U.S., third to last as the host of the video games, in 2034, after that). It makes neighbors of Lebanon, Lichtenstein and Lithuania, and so on, equal in standing if not in measurement. (I’ve a particular fondness for the small delegations from the less imposing nations.) There was an particularly big hand for the Ukrainian staff, dressed in their national colours.

The second half opened with a cartoon in which an animated Sabrina Impacciatore (of “The White Lotus” and, “The Paper,” which NBC fortunately didn’t cross-promote), traveled backward through earlier Winter Games before coming to life to lead an energetic manufacturing quantity that traveled back to now. (She ought to get some kind of athletic medal for this efficiency.) The Chinese pianist Lang Lang accompanied Cecilia Bartoli singing the Olympic anthem, and the great Andrea Bocelli, flanked by strings, provided a thrilling studying of Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma.” Surrounded by dancers, the Italian rapper Ghali read an antiwar poem by Gianni Rodari.

Sabrina Impacciatore main a group of dancers during the ceremony.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

The theme of the night, and of evenings going ahead, it’s hoped, was “Armonia,” or concord, not just between town and the nation (expressed symbolically through dance), but, as a sequence of speeches made clear, among all people, all over the place.

“At a time when so much of the world is divided by conflict, your very presence demonstrates that another world is possible. One of unity, respect and harmony,” said Giovanni Malagò, president of the organizing committee, addressing the athletes. Kirsty Coventry, the first feminine president of the IOC, famous that while Olympic athletes are fierce opponents, they “also respect, support and inspire one another. They remind us that we are all connected, that our strength comes from how we treat each other, and that the best of humanity is found in courage, compassion and kindness.”

And then there was Charlize Theron, of all people, quoting her countryman Nelson Mandela: “Peace is not just the absence of conflict; peace is the creation of an environment where all can flourish, regardless of race, color, creed, religion, gender, class, caste or any other social markers of difference,” This is, of course, precisely what some portion of this nation would call “woke,” and though such divisions should not the exclusive province of the United States, it was straightforward enough to read this as a message delivered to the White House.

Charlize Theron quoted her fellow countryman Nelson Mandela in her speech.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Finally, two Olympic torches have been lit two Olympic cauldrons, in Milan and Cortina, their flames at the middle of shape-shifting spheres. Almost inevitably, the ceremonies flirted with, or embraced, corniness at instances, but even (or particularly) when it was corny, it was terrifically affecting. I ran through half a dozen handkerchiefs over the course of the proceedings. Admittedly, I could be unusually prone to these issues, but I doubt I’m the only one.

Let the video games start.