In the end (the actual end, not the beginning of the end when the athletes got off the boats, or the second false end when they’d put all the flags out), dieu merci for Celine. Clad in shimmering silver as the rain continued to beat down, the French-Canadian diva, who has been suffering from debilitating stiff-person syndrome and feared she may never sing again, brought the Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony to a defiant and emotional conclusion by belting out Edith Piaf’s ‘Hymme à l’amour’ at the top of the Tour Eiffel after a damp squib of an evening.
But that golden hot air balloon-cum-cauldron was a gorgeous eyeful too, non? (It was supposed to float off like that, right? I only ask because apparently the Olympic flag was raised upside down.)
The four hours that had preceded it could be code-named ‘the Rain on the Seine’. As we sat watching on telly on a balmy London evening, it was touching to see another nation acting all stiff upper lip in the pouring pluie for once. It was raining cats and dogs from the moment the tricolore appeared in plumes of smoke along the Austerlitz bridge – and if Brits can be caricatured as rather basic, dependable dogs, then the French are most definitely cats: cool, unpredictable and decidedly not keen on getting wet.
Put out the flag: smoke in the colours of the tricoleur over Pont d’Austerlitz during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Photo: Lars Baron/Getty Images
But of course it wasn’t just one nation braving the weather, it was 184 of them – all paraded down the river on boats; some huge, some tiny, some on their own, some sharing in often bizarre transnational permutations. But all soaked to the skin. For British viewers there were chilling echoes of that other late, great river flotilla wash-out – yes that’s right, the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant 2012, which nearly bumped off the Duke of Edinburgh. Mild hypothermia and kidney infections are not the order of the day when there are games to be played and medals to be won.
Paris looked beautiful regardless (well, at least once the twinkly lights came on), and I can see what they were aiming for: imagine it with sunset, not deluge. But the problem with a linear river procession, as opposed to an immersive stadium spectacle is – rather like being a spectator at a Pride parade as the umpteenth corporate LGBTQ group in company tees and rainbow lanyards whoop past – it’s much more fun for the participants than the watchers. It was all a series of vignettes and performances that various people saw at different times, which ended up feeling underwhelming and disjointed – even if some of the spectacle was mind-blowingly bonkers… and genuinely great.
Headless figures depicting Marie Antoinette perform outside the Conciergerie (where the queen was imprisoned before her execution) during the Paris 2024 Olympics opening ceremony. Photo: Natalia KOLESNIKOVA/AFP
The boat parade, coming over like an extended floating Eurovision green room on absinthe, did at least afford us glimpses of the athletes’ many and varied national kits/uniforms (at least those not shrouded under waterproofs), which ranged from classy to kitsch, via acres of ’90s River Island-style linen, Butlins redcoat blazers, chaotic head-to-toe graphic prints, and some seriously covetable robes and headgear. Some countries were decked out like a Foxtons away day, others like a team of white-hatted fishmongers (want that filleted, love?), or a gaggle of backwards baseball-capped twinks, while others opted for fierce embroidered shoulder pieces and directional slashed skorts. The latter deserved a proper catwalk – especially Haiti, Mongolia and the Czech Republic.
As to the performances themselves, it’s a bit of a blur. What did we just watch? The good or so-bad-it’s-good: gold-clad French-Malian singer Aya Nakamura’s flawless performance, a slightly ropy but endearing can-can along the riverbank, a fiercely determined fashion show on a hazardous runway across one of the bridges featuring French models, some disabled, and drag artists (the drag/queer Last Supper-esque tableau has already angered the US religious right!); a mash-up Les Mis-meets-heavy-metal segment within the Conciergerie, climaxing in a singing decapitated Marie Antoinette; Lady Gaga’s cabaret rendition on gold staircase surrounded by pink pompoms; a robotic metallic horse galloping up the Seine; the pianist Alexandre Kantarow playing Ravel in the rain on a possibly now ruined black grand piano wet with raindrops; a soaring La Marseillaise from the roof of the Grand Palais by Axelle Saint-Cirel as, you guessed it, the rain pelted down.
View of the Olympic Cauldron in the sky with the Louvre in the foreground during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Photo: Julian Finney/Getty Images
The not so good: kitsch gold statues of famous French women emerging from the water, some tenuous and tortuous storytelling through the medium of dance, the lack of truly impressive choreographed or acrobatic sections, the sad lack of Daft Punk, endless white boats, endless see-through ponchos, endless rain. Minions.
The finale (or at least the finale of the beginning) pulled it back though, as athletes converged on the Trocadero under the shadow of the Eiffel Tower that was lit up in a glitzy light display as Radio France choir sang the Olympic hymn – before the last procession back down the Seine to light aforesaid balloon. That mysterious hooded figure parcouring their way across the city – what a tease. After much speculation – Kylian Mbappé? Tom Cruise? Catherine Deneuve? Celine Dion? Brigitte Macron? (Okay, just me) – they went away boringly unmasked. Me? I was just disappointed it wasn’t Andrea from Call My Agent.