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With tributes planned to da Vinci and Dante, Puccini and Pausini, Armani and Fellini, pasta and wine, and other iconic flavors of Italian culture — plus an appearance by American diva Mariah Carey — an unprecedented opening ceremony at four sites with two cauldrons officially kicked off the Milan-Cortina Olympic Games on Friday.
It didn't exactly feel like Winter Games as the festivities began at the main hub, Milan's San Siro soccer stadium, where the temperature was just below 50 degrees Fahrenheit (ten degrees Celsius) and the sky was a clear, crisp blue all afternoon. Not a trace of clouds, let alone snow.
The Olympic Games returned to a nation that last hosted the sporting spectacle 20 years ago. However, these are the most spread-out Winter Games in history, with competition venues scattered over an area of approximately 8,500 square miles (more than 22,000 square kilometers), about the size of the entire state of New Jersey.
In addition to San Siro, which opened a century ago and is home to Serie A soccer titans AC Milan and Inter Milan, but will be demolished and replaced in the coming years, athletes were scheduled to march in three other locations, some carrying their country's flag:
- Cortina d'Ampezzo en el corazón de las montañas Dolomitas
- Livigno en los Alpes
- Predazzo en la provincia autónoma de Trento
That allowed mountain sports such as alpine skiing, bobsleigh, curling, and snowboarding to be represented in the Parade of Nations without requiring people to make the long trip of several hours to Milan, the country's financial capital.
To top it off, the closing ceremony on February 22 will be held in another location, Verona, where Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" was set.
Another symbol of how spread out everything is this time: instead of the usual cauldron that is lit and burns for the duration of the Olympic Games, there will be two, both intended as a tribute to the geometric studies of Leonardo da Vinci.
- Uno está en Milán, a 2½ millas (cuatro kilómetros) de San Siro
- Otro estará a 250 millas (400 kilómetros) de distancia en Cortina
The people who were given the honor of lighting both cauldrons were a closely guarded secret, as is usually the case at any Olympics. At the 2006 Turin Games, it was Italian cross-country skier Stefania Belmondo.
Other links to Italy's heritage scheduled to be part of Friday's festivities: a performance by tenor Andrea Bocelli; dancers trained at the academy of Milan's famous opera house, the Teatro alla Scala; a tribute to the late fashion designer Giorgio Armani, who died last year at 91. A fashion show was to showcase outfits created by Armani in the colors of the Italian flag: red, green, and white.
There were supposed to be references to opera and art, literature and architecture, appreciations for beauty and history and, above all, "La Dolce Vita" (in Italian, "The Good Life" and the name of a 1960 film by Federico Fellini).
Among other segments planned for the show produced by Olympic ceremonies veteran Marco Balich were dancers reimagining the marble works of 18th-century sculptor Antonio Canova; people in costumes representing composers Giacomo Puccini, Gioachino Rossini, and Giuseppe Verdi; and giant tubes of red, blue, and yellow paint — the primary colors — floating above the stage before characters symbolizing creativity and the Italian legacy paraded through the stadium.
There were to be references to ancient Rome, the Renaissance, the Venice Carnival, and the country's notable traditions in various areas such as cooking and literature, such as "Pinocchio" and Dante's "Inferno."
Balladeer Laura Pausini was selected to sing Italy's national anthem in Milan, while a choir was expected to join from Cortina.
Another local touch: Italian actress Sabrina Impacciatore, famous for "White Lotus," was to present a section taking viewers through a century of past Olympic Games, with examples of the evolution of equipment, sportswear, and music. And actress and comedian Brenda Lodigiani was invited to demonstrate the popular Italian hand gestures often used to communicate instead of words.
Much had been kept secret by the organizers, who said they sought to convey themes of harmony and peace, trying to represent the city-mountain dichotomy of the particularly unusual configuration of these Olympic Games while also trying to appeal to a sense of unity in a time of global tensions.
[Publicidad]