Milano Cortina 2026™ Ceremonies™ - Verdict™

[FYI]

1 minute ago, sebastien1214 said:

I think that it's like Lady Gaga with Paris (wasn't she originally supposed to be in Tokyo, by the way?): the IOC negotiates a contract every year with a big American star and imposes it on the host country.

I liked her performance in Paris, though. And the irony that LG is of Italian descent. 

[sebastien1214]

1 minute ago, BigVic said:

Let's hope French Alps 2030 rectify Paris 2024 

Don't expect anything from Alpes 2030, I prefer to warn you in advance. Even me I'm not particularly looking forward to the opening ceremony in 2030.

[sebastien1214]

1 minute ago, FYI said:

I liked her performance in Paris, though. And the irony that LG is of Italian descent. 

Ah, that's actually one of the things I've most forgotten about the ceremony. Let's just say it had a rather slow start (then there was Marie Antoinette being beheaded, that's when the real ceremony began for me).

[BigVic]

8 minutes ago, sebastien1214 said:

Don't expect anything from Alpes 2030, I prefer to warn you in advance. Even me I'm not particularly looking forward to the opening ceremony in 2030.

After a brilliant OC in Italy, I am dreading what is going to happen in 4 years time. 

[SkiFreak]

First of all, I thought Mariah Carey was back into hibernation after the Christmas season. 😜

I will need to do a replay of the ceremonies as CBC was up to their old self and the broadcast was full of commercials. Noticed in the past the replay usually has less.

From my first watch, a decent, elegant simple, opening ceremony. Very nice cauldrons. Great to see Alberto light the cauldron. He's still a favorite around Calgary and Nakiska. People still talk about his antics at the 88 games. It did take a little getting used to to the 4 stadium locations and the teams being divided up. Wasn't surprised that Israel and USA got some boos.

As far as the Team Canada Lululemon outfits go? Ugly. Looked like Team Canada walked-in in wingsuits and they were ready to glide off the Dolomites. I miss the days of the now defunct HBC and Roots being the team suppliers. Here's hoping Team Canada drops Lulu and goes back to Roots. If you design this stuff, you maybe want to design it so the athletes may want to wear it in the future too. But no one will want to wear these big puffer wingsuit jackets. Lululemon sucks on their supply of team Canada gear too. They got a store here in Kelowna, but no Team Canada apparel.🤦‍♂️

[AustralianFan]

46 minutes ago, Bear said:

Kirsty Coventry's excessively long speech has been forgiven as she has killed Imagine. BEST PRESIDENT EVER!

Full review coming soon.

Actually not sure if Kirsty Coventry’s speech was excessively long compared to Bach’s past few:

Tokyo 2020:  At the pandemic games, spoke for astonishing 14 minutes (13 mins 55 secs)

Beijing 2022:  Bach spoke for 10 minutes (9 mins 56 secs)

Paris 2024: Bach spoke for 8 minutes (7 mins 47 secs)

Milano Cortina 2026:  still waiting on the OC replay to appear somewhere to time Coventry

[rio2016man]

That was a wonderful, spectacular, heartwarming Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony

[Bear]

4 minutes ago, AustralianFan said:

Milano Cortina 2026:  still waiting on the OC replay to appear somewhere to time Coventry

I timed it, it was 10 minutes 15 seconds. Pretty long, but if her future ceremony speeches are shorter, I'll forgive her and consider it a "It's my first Olympics as IOC President" thing.

[AustralianFan]

1 minute ago, Bear said:

I timed it, it was 10 minutes 15 seconds. Pretty long, but if her future ceremony speeches are shorter, I'll forgive her and consider it a "It's my first Olympics as IOC President" thing.

Fair enough 👍

[baron-pierreIV]

Her messaging is kinda repetitive!!  I don't think she has anyone editing her speeches.  

[Bear]

One note - No Fantasia Italiana? I was expecting it to show up at some point like Parade did with Paris 2024.

[baron-pierreIV]

Where was VOLARE?  I thought that was going to be sung by Lang Lang???

Also, how come Cecilia Bartoli deserved an accompaniment on a beige piano with Lang Lang but no piano for Bocelli?  Did they think he wouldn't see it and he would stumble?  How did they move the cream piano in and out of there -- without the cameras catching it?  (Am being facetious with this question.)

Also, I think this had the least number of those dancing "floor marshals" or "live dividers" on the floor, of any ceremony of recent memory.  They must've had only like FIFTEEN on the floor!  I missed the TONS of them doing their inane movements and gyrations!!!

Edited February 6 by baron-pierreIV

[yoshi]

Very classy overall, as you'd expect from Italy. Not sure what Mariah really added. The parade & split ceremonies worked surprisingly well, & it was lovely to see Cortina's mountain village fete vibe. Enjoyed the centenary tribute, although minus for the AI use. Kirsty hasn't livened the speeches up. The cauldrons are beautiful, & the sequence around them was very nice. But who on earth has Bocelli singing Nessun Dorma & doesn't make it the finale?! 

Edit: I forgot the best bit - the sign language! Best bit of ceremony comedy in years!

Edited February 6 by yoshi

[baron-pierreIV]

10 minutes ago, yoshi said:

- the sign language! Best bit of ceremony comedy in years!

Where was that?  (Maybe when I fell asleep??) 

[SkiFreak]

One bittersweet thing about these ceremonies... they could've been in Calgary. My Facebook feed for the last few days is full of pics from the 88 games. Still a lot of people on the fence about whether it was a bad thing to vote against hosting these games. Recently, new Calgary Mayor Jeremy Farkas said they may look at a future bid. But... will there be any snow? Will there still be any Winter Olympics? I was in Calgary just 14 years and the climate change over that time was noticeable.

[Sir Rols]

What’s the Twitterverse saying? Did anything piss off the MAGA crew?

[cfm Jeremie]

1 hour ago, sebastien1214 said:

I think that it's like Lady Gaga with Paris (wasn't she originally supposed to be in Tokyo, by the way?): the IOC negotiates a contract every year with a big American star and imposes it on the host country.

Gaga was not imposed on Paris by the IOC. It was a creative choice and I thought she fitted nicely in the ceremony.

[BigVic]

53 minutes ago, SkiFreak said:

I will need to do a replay of the ceremonies as CBC was up to their old self and the broadcast was full of commercials. Noticed in the past the replay usually has less.

 

Watching the replay on Stan in Australia with no commercials at all from start to finish. A pity CBC insert as many commercials as possible in Canada for a near-3 hour show 

[sebastien1214]

13 minutes ago, cfm Jeremie said:

Gaga was not imposed on Paris by the IOC. It was a creative choice and I thought she fitted nicely in the ceremony.

I thought it was a choice imposed by the IOC, because I clearly remember in the opening ceremony documentary hearing Victor Le Masne say, "But how are we going to fit Lady Gaga in?", which made me think it wasn't entirely their choice. But perhaps I was wrong.

[Bear]

27 minutes ago, Sir Rols said:

What’s the Twitterverse saying? Did anything piss off the MAGA crew?

They're pissed off at the AI video, the MAGA tears probably won't show up till NBC airs the primetime version later tonight

[FernandoLima]

Very neat ceremony. Spectacular to say the least. Couldn’t help noticing the nice transitions between segments, Balich does that very well, especially if you remember some messy moments in Paris pretty hard to follow and understand. The athletes parade around northern Italy put some more entertaining on something that’s usually quite boring to watch. For me the best thing about this ceremony was the choice of not relay in projections and virtual stuffs besides we had real things happening on stage, real people and scenography. 
 

And I know Balich doesn’t have much fans here, but the fact is he’s in Olympic history as a master of ceremonies. We will remember him in the future games and his ceremonies will not look that bad.
 

The final lesson is: of course you can have some parts of the show on open-air and in the streets (Cortina, Livigno and Predazzo were beautiful on screen) but Olympic ceremonies were meant to be in STADIUMS gathering people on a single place and putting everything together. I hope we shall not see those Paris ideas anymore.

 

Score: 9/10

 

[JMarkSnow2012]

1 hour ago, baron-pierreIV said:

After Paris 2024, first time the main "cauldron" was NOT within the periphery of the main stadium. 

Depends what you mean by "main cauldron". The cauldron that burned throughout the Rio 2016 games was the one on the waterfront, with the big one reserved for ceremonies.

[baron-pierreIV]

8 minutes ago, JMarkSnow2012 said:

Depends what you mean by "main cauldron". The cauldron that burned throughout the Rio 2016 games was the one on the waterfront, with the big one reserved for ceremonies.

Yes, there are those "show" cauldrons.  But what I'm saying is that this Milano OC didn't even bother with a "place-holder cauldron" but just went for the jugular in the Plaza.  I wouldn't count Paris becuz P-2024 OC didn't really happen in your traditional stadium setting.  

Also, funny that they didn't do split-screens of the same natin marching in or -- I could tell which was Cortina, but couldn't distinguish between the other 2.  And why did they choose that narrow street in Cortina???

Edited February 7 by baron-pierreIV

[Citizen-Seth]

Lots of thoughts about the ceremony, and I’m sure it’ll take me a few days to settle on my real verdict. 

 

Here are a few stray thoughts:

 

What worked:

• The music for the entire ceremony was wonderful. From the national anthem to Mariah (not sure why she was there, but everyone seemed to enjoy her), to the incredible Nessun Dorma and the great orchestral moments. The DJ during the parade was fantastic and was a perfect way to keep the crowd engaged when there weren’t athletes marching in. 
• The artistic segments were very well done from what I could see. My vantage point was very “zoomed in” so I’ll have to go back and watch the telecasts later. I’m sure there’s so much context I missed. 
• The poster tribute. Not sure if it was AI, but I enjoyed it a lot. 
• No “Imagine!”
• The presentation of the Italian flag. Seeing all of those super models walk the runway was awesome and really set a “Welcome to the world’s fashion capital” mood. 
• The parade. I was very curious as to how this would work, but it worked out so well! I loved the placard bearer outfits (maybe a new favorite) and the block of ice placards. It did start a little rocky, given that the first 4-6 countries didn’t have any athletes actually in Milan. Azerbaijan got a huge cheer just because they were the first people to finally walk in. The only thing I wish was different was that I wish every nation would have had a flag walk into the stadium; even if it was carried by a volunteer. All of the flags showed up anyway as the speaker backdrop, so why not give the audience something to look at?
• Andrea Boticelli, the flame, and Nessun Dorma. I was 18 in 2006 and remember getting chills as I watched Pavoratti sing in Torino, and I had those same chills tonight. A truly spine-tingling moment. 

 

What worked less well:

• The way finding and organization here in Milan is quite poor. Getting around the stadium was very confusing and getting out was a mess. 
• The time travel dance sequence seemed very jarring. Caveat: I was sitting directly behind the mountain backdrop, so I couldn’t actually watch the segment. All I saw was the cast desperately changing costumes behind the scenes. Maybe it worked better on TV?
• The video screens in San Siro were very small. I get not wanting to invest money in something larger, but all of the video content was different to see. 
• Both of the speeches were too long and poorly written. 
• The peace segment at the end seemed tacked on to give the flame time to get from the stadium to the cauldron. It seemed like an afterthought compared to the rest of the ceremony. 
• No fireworks. Boo.
• The cauldrons. Granted, I haven’t seen them lit up, but I have seen them in person and I just think they’re an influence gimmick. 

[Sir Rols]

45 minutes ago, Citizen-Seth said:

The time travel dance sequence seemed very jarring. Caveat: I was sitting directly behind the mountain backdrop, so I couldn’t actually watch the segment. All I saw was the cast desperately changing costumes behind the scenes. Maybe it worked better on TV?

That’s a pity. It was one of the sequences I really liked. Be interested in your views after you’ve watched it properly.

45 minutes ago, Citizen-Seth said:

The poster tribute. Not sure if it was AI, but I enjoyed it a lot. 

So did I.

I know there’s a good debate to be had about the use of AI. It arouses strong feelings.

For me, as long as the original artistic concept was conceived by a human, I don’t care how it was animated - it’s just advanced cgi for me then. If the original artistic concept was came from an AI, that might be different, but afaik we have no idea if that’s the case.

Maybe I’m wrong, and my kind of acceptance will lead us to an inevitable…