Organisers of Friday’s opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics 2024 — the primary time it will likely be held exterior a stadium — have supplied teasers for his or her spectacular plans however refused to offer specifics. Whereas the Summer season Video games formally kickstart on July 27, some occasions shall be held on July 25 as effectively. However forward of the opening ceremony, here’s what we all know in regards to the idea, the artists and music primarily based on public statements over the previous couple of months and press leaks:
What is the idea?
As a substitute of utilizing the principle athletics stadium for the opening parade, as is customary, organisers have moved the occasion exterior and into the guts of the capital — consistent with their motto “Video games Extensive Open”.
Round 6,000-7,000 athletes are set to sail down a six-kilometre (four-mile) stretch of the river Seine from the Austerlitz bridge within the east to the Eiffel Tower, on 85 barges and boats.
As much as 500,000 persons are set to look at in particular person from specifically constructed stands, the place tickets have bought for as much as 2,700 euros ($2,900), on the river banks totally free and from the overlooking balconies and residences.
“Organising a ceremony on the Seine just isn’t simpler than doing it in a stadium… nevertheless it has extra punch,” chief organiser Tony Estanguet instructed AFP earlier this month.
Due to the dimensions and complexity of the parade, it has by no means been rehearsed in full.
What in regards to the leisure?
The present has been designed by prodigious theatre director Thomas Jolly, a 42-year-old identified for hit rock-opera musical “Starmania”.
He introduced on board a inventive staff that features the author of French TV sequence “Name My Agent”, Fanny Herrero, in addition to best-selling writer Leila Slimani and famend historian Patrick Boucheron.
The present has been cut up into 12 totally different sections, with round 3,000 dancers, singers and entertainers positioned on each banks of the river, the bridges and close by monuments.
A tribute to Notre-Dame cathedral, within the means of being renovated after a devastating fireplace in 2019, is assured, probably with dancers on its scaffolding.
Beginning at 07:30pm (1730 GMT), two thirds of the ceremony will happen in daylight, then nightfall — Jolly is hoping for one in every of Paris’s gorgeous summer season sunsets — and can finish with a lightweight present.
The music shall be a mixture of classical, conventional ‘chanson francaise’, in addition to rap and electro.
Franco-Malian R&B star Aya Nakamura is extensively tipped to carry out regardless of criticism from far-right politicians, together with Marine Le Pen who urged an look by her would “humiliate” France.
French electro superstars Daft Punk mentioned they’d turned down an invite to play, whereas globe-trotting French DJ David Guetta has been missed — a lot to his irritation.
What is the message?
Requested to sum up his message final week, Jolly mentioned it was “love.”
Regardless of the chance of irking conservatives, he mentioned his work can be a celebration of cultural, linguistic, spiritual and sexual diversit in France and all over the world.
“I believe the individuals who wish to stay collectively on this variety, this otherness, are way more quite a few, however we make much less noise,” he instructed AFP.
It’s honest to imagine it will likely be nothing just like the retro-styled opening ceremony of final yr’s rugby World Cup, which featured a succession of French cliches from baguettes to berets and the Eiffel Tower.
Jolly’s staff can also be cautious of over-emphasising France’s historic contribution to the event of democracy and the idea of common human rights because of its Enlightenment philosophers and 1789 Revolution.
“We needed to keep away from our pure tendency to lecture folks,” Herrero instructed Le Monde newspaper just lately.
And do not anticipate a three-hour tribute to French greatness to rival the nationalistic pageantry seen on the Beijing Video games in 2008.
“The opening ceremony in Beijing in 2008 was precisely what we didn’t wish to do,” Boucheron instructed Le Monde.
What would be the massive moments?
With a lot nonetheless underneath wraps, it is laborious to foretell.
A efficiency by Aya Nakamura, after a lot controversy about her function, can be a significant second so quickly after parliamentary elections that noticed the anti-immigration far-right achieve a historic 143 seats within the nationwide parliament.
Jolly has strongly hinted {that a} submersible or submarine may emerge from the waters of the Seine in some unspecified time in the future.
“You’ve gotten the sky, you will have bridges, you will have water, you will have banks, you will have a lot house to make poetry,” Jolly instructed reporters final week. “So why not underneath the river additionally?”
The most important second of all may merely be the tip if everybody will get dwelling safely.
The ceremony has given French police chilly sweats ever because it was unveiled in 2021 due to the issue of securing so many individuals over such an unlimited city space.
Round 45,000 members of the safety forces shall be on responsibility.
(Aside from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)
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