TThe perfect staging of Tokyo’s opening ceremony was always going to be a challenge for any successor, and Paris made the wise decision not to try to replicate the stadium spectacle or high-tech trappings (remember the menacing array of 1,800 drones?).
The ceremony’s creative director, Thomas Joly, had the bright idea to play up the city’s famous romance by using Paris itself as the backdrop, with each country’s athletes marching down the Seine River in a 6-kilometer (3.7-mile) parade that snaked over bridges, roads, and rooftops.But what seems like a highly original idea on paper doesn’t always live up to expectations when played out on a rain-soaked night in central Paris.
There were some highlights: French-Algerian soccer legend Zinedine Zidane opening the ceremony by handing the Olympic torch to a group of children; a lavishly choreographed dance performance that depicted the reconstruction of Notre Dame; and a gold carpet laid out on the Pont des Arts for French-Malian singer-songwriter Aya Nakamura with dancers sparkling beside her. (Rumors that she would perform at the event had invited racist ire from far-right politicians, so given Marine Le Pen’s recent defeat, her attendance felt like a victory.)
But there were also some completely bizarre curatorial decisions. Why, for example, was Lady Gaga the first act? Surrounded by pink ostrich feathers and wearing a quill-like fascinator atop her head, she sang Mon truc en plumes (originally by Zizi Jeanmaire) in her best French accent, yet it looked like a shoddy, cheesy riverside cabaret by an American pop star. Pink-washed signs (a visual pun on La Vie en Rose?) bearing words like “chic!” also looked cheesy. One minute French heavy metal band Gojira performed, and the next an opera singer was singing Bizet’s Carmen. And the torchbearers, faceless and hooded, sprinted across rooftops and zip-lined between buildings as if chasing screaming victims, like some kind of demented creation from a Halloween movie series.
Creative though it may have been, there was a sense of too many things happening at once, and it seemed disjointed as the strolling performance leapt from one idea to the next, from a can-can to a gothic tableau depicting a decapitated woman holding a red streamer in a conciergerie window.
The guiding principles of the French Revolution — liberty, equality, fraternity (plus sororities) — ostensibly shape the structure of the show, but in reality there’s plenty of American eccentricity but no deeper unity or coherence, and while there was some democracy in staging it on the streets like the Tour de France, to the Parisian audience it felt like a piecemeal spectacle, and no doubt fleeting.
Paris is known for its good taste, but this felt like a mishmash of costumes: water cannons, street dancers in Louis XIV costumes, and a super-camp fashion show that felt like a crime against haute couture, and wouldn’t have looked out of place on Cannes’s glitzy La Croisette.
At least the procession calmed down by the time it reached the Trocadero, with a silver-clad figure arriving on horseback, creating a stately procession, though the Eiffel Tower was blasted with blue lasers, creating yet another ominous atmosphere. The most memorable moment of the night came at its end, when the Olympic cauldron was lit inside a hot air balloon, which shot up into the night sky like a floating orange-red sphere. Finally, Celine Dion delivered a moving rendition of Edith Piaf’s Love Anthem, and the spectacle was repeated. If only there had been more of this class at the ceremony.
