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It’s molto bene to be Leo’s girlfriend.
At Friday night’s Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony in Milan, Italy, Vittoria Ceretti, the 27-year-old model — and Leonardo DiCaprio’s twentysomethingth twentysomething — carried the Italian flag ahead of the host country’s national anthem.
Beyond her obvious headline-grabbing potential (this was a fete that also celebrated the paparazzi), Ceretti’s duty made sense.
The Italian Ceretti, if you somehow couldn’t guess the provenance of her last name, was part of a runway-style tribute to the late designer Giorgio Armani, the Milanese fashion designer who died last September. Models strutted in wearing chic Armani suits in red, white and green. Everybody looked gorgeous.
Indeed, while the kickoff’s official theme was “harmony,” the real sell in icy Italia was beauty. The European nation’s clothes, art, music, food and, yes, genetic gifts, were on full display. Not so much the millennia-old industriousness of the Duomo, Colosseum or Roman aqueducts. Giant, mechanical elements like those cost a lot of Euros.
Unfortunately Italy’s showcase, like France’s drizzle fizzle two years ago, turned out pretty dinky.
There was no earnest attempt to match the world-power might of 2022’s Beijing Games or the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, which were huge, precise and militant.
Comparably mini Milan was mostly a series of repetitious, unimpressive dances. The performers didn’t dance like nobody’s watching, but like half as many people were watching than would be during the summer.
The first a-five-six-seven-eight featured statues of Cupid and Psyche from the Roman “Metamorphoses” skipping around other artworks looking for each other. Unlike dancers at Paris’ 2024 peculiar presentation, they did not seek out a ménage à trois.
Then three huge bobbleheads of composers Gioachino Rossini, Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini — famed for their operas — bounced along while dancers dressed as colorful music notes, espresso makers, picture frames, chefs, Galileo and Leonardo da Vinci gyrated around.
It was a vision out of “Eurovision.”
Next, that famous Italian Mariah Carey sang “Volare,” which segued to her rather less iconic new song, “Nothing is Impossible.” She sounded great and didn’t move a millimeter.
There was another choreographed sequence with hoofers representing cities and nature, or something like that.
And then, of course, came the Parade of Athletes. A choice that sums up the entire campy event well is that the Italian team walked out to a techno version of “Largo al factotum” — “Figaaaro! Figaaaro!” — from “The Barber of Seville.”
I wasn’t thrilled with the event dividing the parade into four towns — Milan, Cortina, Livigno and Predazzo — but it was the most widespread Winter Games ever and, thus, allowed more Olympians to get their moment in the sun. Or, rather, snow.
After that — whaddya know? — more dancing! “White Lotus” Season 2 actress Sabrina Impacciatore frolicked around the stage with mountain-town characters in a crazy production number about the history of Milan ski culture that wouldn’t have been out of place on American TV in 1983.
A late, time-filling comedy routine featuring actress Brenda Lodigiani making big, dramatic Italian gestures, talking with her hands during a bit where her microphone wouldn’t work, could’ve been titled “Cost-saving Measure.”
The highlight of the night was tenor Andrea Bocelli magnificently singing the aria “Nessun dorma” from Puccini’s opera “Turandot.” The moment had real significance, grandeur, tears and chills. Finally!
It sure looked like the ceremony was about to be over and that the torchbearers would light the cauldrons.
“No!” the organizers said. “Let’s throw in a pointless solar-system dance and an anti-war dance, and have Charlize Theron read a quote from Nelson Mandela!”
Call me old-fashioned, but aren’t the best ambassadors for unity at the Olympics the world’s greatest athletes — not the star of “Mad Max: Fury Road”?
English (US)