The 2024 Summer Olympics was off to a rollicking start in Paris on Friday, beginning with an innovative opening ceremony blending sports with fashion, art, politics and music. It was capped off by the long-awaited return of Celine Dion to the world stage.
But before she made her triumphant return, Paris gave the audience plenty of dazzling entertainment. For the first time in Olympic history, the opening ceremony took place not in a stadium, but on water, upon Paris’ famous Seine River with 85 boats gliding down the waterway, carrying athletes from 206 nations, cheering and smiling despite the rainy weather. In keeping with tradition, Team USA’s boat —comprised of 594 athletes representing 46 states — was situated near the end of the procession. The United States will be hosting the next summer Games in Los Angeles in 2028.
The festivities began with French soccer legend Zinedine Zidane carrying the Olympic torch underground to the Métro subway before passing it off to a group of kids. The kids come upon a mysterious and masked ferryman who takes them down the river to the ceremony. A burst of blue, white, and red smoke — reflecting the colors of the French flag — then appeared over the Seine.
It’s this masked, hooded ferryman who becomes a torchbearer and an ongoing figure in the opening ceremony narrative as they traverse Paris. Torch in hand, the person leapfrogged across rooftops of Parisian buildings, dodged musket fire during a reenactment of the French Revolution and passed through hallways at the Louvre Museum. The masked figure eventually discovered the Mona Lisa has been stolen, which led to an adventure to try and retrieve it. The journey included galloping across the Seine on a glimmering horse and eventually delivering the Olympic flag.
Concurrent with the flotilla of athletes was a series of musical performances, starting with superstar Lady Gaga, who performed a rendition of Zizi Jeanmaire’s “Mon Truc en Plumes,” or “My Thing With Feathers.” Flanked by a group of backup dancers dressed in all black and carrying pink feather fans, a similarly befeathered Gaga sang and danced at the foot of the Seine. Following her performance, she took to her Instagram to share her thoughts.
“I feel so completely grateful to have been asked to open the Paris @Olympics 2024 this year. I am also humbled to be asked by the Olympics organizing committee to sing such a special French song—a song to honor the French people and their tremendous history of art, music, and theatre,” the singer wrote. “Although I am not a French artist, I have always felt a very special connection with French people and singing French music — I wanted nothing more than to create a performance that would warm the heart of France, celebrate French art and music, and on such a momentous occasion remind everyone of one of the most magical cities on earth — Paris.”
“We rented pom poms from Le Lido archive—a real French cabaret theater,” Gaga explained.