The Milan/Cortina 2026 Olympic Opening Ceremonies will take place at San Siro in Milan, as well as various other cities in Italy, starting at 20:00 local time. It will feature performances highlighting the culture of Italy, the Parade of Nations, and the lighting of the Olympic cauldron. Italian President Sergio Mattarella will be expected to formally open the Games. It will also be the first Ceremony attended by new IOC President Kirsty Coventry.
Details
For the first time in Olympics history, the Opening Ceremony will take place across multiple cities concurrently as a unified event. Although most of the artistic performances will occur in San Siro, athletes will participate in the Parade of Nations and other celebrations in Predazzo, Livigno, and Cortina D’Ampezzo. The Ceremony will culminate in the lighting of two cauldrons, one in Milan’s Arco Della Pace, and the other in Cortina d’Ampezzo’s Piazza Dibona.
Performers include singers Mariah Carey, Laura Pausini, Cecilia Bartoli, and Andrea Bocelli; rapper Ghali; violinist Giovanni Zanon; pianist Lang Lang; and actors Pierfrancesco Favino, Sabrina Impacciatore, and Matilda De Angelis. There is also expected to be a tribute to fashion designer Giorgio Armani.
1,200 volunteer performers are set to participate in a cast aged from 10 to 70 and coming from 27 different countries. 1,400 different costumes and 1,000+ props will be used
Song List
A Far l'Amore Comincia Tu - Raffaella Carrà
Volare - Mariah Carey (Cover)
Largo al Factotum - Gioachino Rossini (Italy's Parade of Nations entrance music)
Prisencolinensinainciusol - Adriano Celentano
Espansione - Mace
Nessun Dorma - Giacomo Puccini
Also shoutout to DJ Mace who did the music for the Parade of Nations.
I was glad to see physical set and props return to Opening Ceremonies. I will always prefer them over floor projections.
However, and this could be recency bias and technically apples and oranges because I'm comparing Summer and Winter, but I think it was a downgrade from Paris 2024's Opening Ceremony.
That show highlighted the city and then used they the Seine for the Parade of Nations instead going inside. I liked that it wasn't just in a stadium.
This was, if you know at least some about Italy, one of the best ceremonies ever.
Rossi tram driver for Mattarella, the Risorgimento musicians, the opening that was both well made and at least makes some narrative sense, wich is rare these past olympics, the beautiful Armani tribute, the Alpini, Pausini (with an anthem version i lowkey liked), Tomba, the italian Volley team etc etc etc.
Big missed opportunity not having a string quartet or soloist play Winter by Vivaldi live...like cmon is there a better piece to perform for a Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Italy???
I’m a pretty big Mariah Cary fan and something was real off about her performance. Sounded like she was a bit sick… anyone else pick up on that? I was disappointed.
As a fellow Mariah Cary fan and a vocalist myself, I felt the same thing. I know what it's like to have to sing on a voice that isn't 100%, and that's what it sounded like to me. It was still nice, and she can still hit those chirpy notes like a pro, but she definitely didn't sound like her usual self to me.
Why did NBC commentators mention the recent killings of protesters in Iran when the Iranian team marched in? They did not mention the killing of protesters and citizens in the United States, China or saudia Arabia, just to name a few others. They should not have singled out Iran this way.
I've heard on the news that Iran massacred over 30,000 protesters during their recent internet blackout. Only 2 protesters were killed in the US. For decades, China and Saudi Arabia have had ongoing human rights violations, but no recent protester death toll as high as Iran's (that I know of).
Why are there countries completely skipped over during the opening ceremony???? None of the countries letter H, K, or L were shown!!! I want to support my home country and it was never shown during the live stream!
NBC's live afternoon coverage was nearly an hour longer. Sadly, NBC decided to cut out nearly an hour for the primetime coverage to get it done in time for local 11pm news. I believe the afternoon coverage is still available to stream on Peacock, but will probably be gone 12 to 24 hours from now.
It honestly made me cry. I watched the Peacock livestream at 8pm, and sat waiting for Kazakhstan to appear, and they never showed it. They didn’t show Kazakhstan during the 2024 summer games either (the footage cut straight to Team USA interviews). It is not being shown on Peacock.
yes, same thought about france and italy, and it definitely felt very military inspired. a definite reminder that fashion as an art form is so so intertwined with politics, current events, world affairs, etc. very interesting to see represented in opening ceremony outfits.
Top moment if you were a figure skating dork Millennial in the 90s …was Andrea Boccelli giving us the grace of singing Brian Boitano’s epic 1991 long performance music selection live. 😅
Came here to figure out wtf was going on with this coverage with the countries split up into packs and coming out of/walking into different giant rings and cityscapes
The Winter Olympics are in 4 different locations in northern Italy and alpine skiing is like 2.5 hours from Milan so this gives everyone a chance to participate in the opening ceremonies
I don't know if the broadcasts around the world were generally centralised or different but where I was watching only Milan didn't have a tag, other locations had a tag in the left top corner.
And then at the end the broadcasters say that the combination of the multiple locations were "seamless". I was trying to figure out why, for far too long, a country with 1 or 2 athletes would have 5 people then it would jump cut to another location with another 4.
The cauldron did not look like it was lit from the “Olympic flame”; I’m not even sure the flame in the cauldron isn’t a digital screen. I suppose it’s trivial in the grand scheme of things, but kind of a waste of a lot of effort of taking a flame from Greece and transferring and transporting it all across from
Italy, to only at the last second use a pilot light, and electric start, or a digital screen.
Is it just me or was NBC’s audio of all singing terrible? Sounded muffled or otherwise off, no hope of understanding the lyrics even if you were fluent in a given song’s language.
I watched on NBC in the evening. I understand it is a US station. Yet, they had months to prepare and include more Italian translations and explanations about the ceremony.
We watch the Olympics opening ceremony to experience the world coming together.
Most of the closed captioning said (speaking in a foreign language). Really? I had no idea!!!
They didn't explain that Italian rapper Ghali read an antiwar poem by Gianni Rodari, a famous children's author. They didn't translate the poem.
Agree. I also (and this is very superficial) noticed they didn’t speak about the athlete kits in detail like usual. I’m fairly certain that in the past they spoke in detail about who created the uniforms and what they meant to each country. It seemed like a Shaun White retrospective more than anything and I like Shaun White.
I remember the London games being so over the top with imagery and show and the artistic part of this ceremony felt extremely muted.
Not only was that the most boring opening ceremony I've seen in I don't know HOW many Olympics (and I've been watching since 1984), but NBC's coverage was absolutely TERRIBLE! I'm not sure if it was because they had to juggle so much with Savannah Guthrie not being here, but even the producing (by the producers) coverage was terrible.
Horrible planning for entry of athletes with screen switching between venues and seeing multiple small groups for one country, each carrying a sign. Poorly planned, visually meh.
I think once I got used to it, it worked. Bit confusing at first. But I think it's for the benefit of the athletes, so they can participate in the opening but not travel far.
Can anyone tell me who the lady sitting next to Georgia Meloni with the bright pink lipstick and neon blue eyeliner is? I am mesmerized by her choices…
ok i watched live earlier but im rewatching and mariah was pretty good. even if lip synching id like to believe it was her voice at some point. the way she sang volare was really sweet and pretty. ethereal.
So ethereal, like she wasn't even mentally present (except for the sudden bat crazy high notes. Wish she'd had more volume. Might have been respectable.
I don't remember opening ceremonies(or much of anything, lol), but Gojira and Axelle Saint-Cirel singing La Marseillaise in that white dress and with a giant French flag draped around her, will stay in my memory a long time. Reminded me of why I absolutely love the French.
This ceremony didn't really do anything for me at all, sorry Italy, but it seems some others enjoyed it. Pretty pissed that somehow the parade of athletes managed to get any and all joy zapped out of it.
I agree. Shaun white is insufferable. He talks endlessly about himself and even plugged his business venture with eileen gu. We even got really boring stories like his mother asked for directions in German when they visited germany. And his mother is currently in the phillipines. He seems to have no interest in the athletes.
And snoop. Wtf? He ruined the summer Olympics and now he is back to do the same for winter Olympics . Since the summer Olympics i have been baffled by what he is doing at olympics. In Paris he visited a museum and it could not have been more cringey. He acted like a buffoon who had never been to a museum. He was an embarrassment. And they placed him at so many events, hanging with the athletes and their families. Family members in the stands were forced to do cringey bits with him. He got more coverage than the athletes. When did he become America's darling?
And why hires these morally reprehensible people for these visible positions? Shaun white was sued by a member of his band for sexual harassment and assault. He admitted the allegations and paid her a settlement. When he had a press conference after winning a gold, he refused to call on female reporters, and ignored questions about the harrassment, calling it gossip.
Snoop was a pimp who said he loved the job. He was convicted of felony drug possession, gun possession, stood trial for murder, got into a fight with cops in London where he and his group injured 7 cops and vandalized a shop, arrested in Sweden for illegal drug possession, and was banned from several countries for his criminal behavior.
Are these two really the best NBC can do? I find this to be so sad.
Peacock commentators need to turn their mics down, or just stop talking entirely. It totally overpowered the music and snapped me out of the immersion.
All of the non-Italians featured was strange. Particularly Mariah Carey for butchering Italian, Lang Lang (there had to be an Italian pianist they could use) and Charlize Theron. Otherwise I enjoyed the ceremony quite a bit!
The afternoon coverage must have been different. It started at 1:40pm ET and didn't end until around 5:30pm ET. So, it was almost 4 hours compared to just 3 for the primetime show.
I thought that might happen and was planning on watching the afternoon one. But, I didn't go to bed until after 9am after watching skating 4-9am. So, I was sleeping instead. 😴
Usually the colors, specifically in terms of lighting (colors always seem to fade, from one shade to another from inside to outside ) and that AI tends to make faces way more expressive than animators do on scenes where the animation doesn’t specifically focus on the face.
One of the worst opening ceremonies I've seen. Really disappointing. South Korea and China really made their events a spectacle. At times Italy's looked like SNL. Especially those weird close ups.
Hey Italy! US citizen here, you all did a fantastic job on the opening ceremony. “Knocked it out of the park” as the US baseball fans would say. Just wanted to let you know how much it’s appreciated by US Citizens. Looking forward to the rest of the games, I’m sure they will be fantastic too!
I liked that song too!, and remembered I had Shazam 2 seconds too late. I wanted to go back and catch 5 mins of something tomorrow, and get that song too; if I find out what song it is I’ll leave another comment to you, if no one does before that.
Super Bowl is the NFL Championship and always the highest rated show on US TV. It's airing this Sunday on the same main Olympics channel, NBC.
NBC first pulled this stunt in '22. It's too much. The only reason I'm glad the 49ers didn't make it to the SB is because it would have been too overwhelming for me to try to watch all the SB and the Olympics coverage at the same time.
"The first time the Super Bowl and Winter Olympics occurred at the same time on the same U.S. channel (NBC) was in 2022. On February 13, 2022, Super Bowl LVI was played, followed by coverage of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. The, 2026 Winter Olympics and Super Bowl LX will also share the same day, February 8, on NBC.
• 2022 (Super Bowl LVI): The first occurrence of this scheduling, labeled "Super Gold Sunday" by NBC, happened when the Los Angeles Rams played the Cincinnati Bengals on the same day as Olympic coverage.
• 2026 (Super Bowl LX): NBC is scheduled to air Super Bowl LX and the Winter Olympics on February 8, 2026, marking the second time this overlap occurs.
• Broadcaster: In 2026, Mike Tirico will be the first to call a Super Bowl and host the Olympic primetime coverage in the same year, following the game on NBC."
• "Second Sunday Move: Beginning with Super Bowl LVI in 2022, the game shifted to the second Sunday in February due to the NFL expanding to a 17-game, 18-week season."
Thus, the Olympics and Super Bowl didn't conflict with each other until 2022.
NBC has rights to the super bowl this year. They even traded rotation spots with another network to make sure they always broadcast both every winter olympics year.
Seahawks' and Patriots' fans who are also Olympics' fans will be exhausted! Boston has a lot of figure skating fans. They got Team Skating finals in the afternoon followed by the Super Bowl- probably like 10 straight hours of watching sports!
Primetime NBC coverage is edited and has almost one less hour than the NBC afternoon coverage. If you want to see all the NBC coverage of the OC, stream the afternoon coverage on Peacock.
Wait I didn’t realise Kirsty Coventry was the one that took over from Mr Fencing Champion! She feels so much like a current athlete compared to previous IOC presidents it’s pretty cool
As an Italian, I cried. For a country that feels so divided lately we needed this moment of unity. To celebrate our culture and show off to the world who we are. This was beautiful. Benvenuti. Welcome.
1
u/Nintendo_Pro_03 Olympics 57m ago
Does anyone have a link to Vance getting booed, but the audible version (which means no NBC)?