The set: 9. An elegant, evocative show, at times self-deprecating and celebratory, the right thing without excessive rhetoric.
Costumes: 8. great elegance, from the dancers dressed as musical notes to the statues of Canova, the tubes of color dropped on colorful figures dressed as ironic symbols of design, art and history are cheerful and fun (the coffee pots are cute). But why the Russian countryside coat for Favino and for poor Brenda Lodigiani, elegant, shoulders very exposed to the cold? Oh well, the grandmothers said that to beautify you have to suffer but at the end in the stadium, with a breath of wind, but even for Cecilia Bartoli it must have been an extreme sport to sing without trembling. Some falls into the Disney princely in Mariah Carey’s dress.
Parade: 7-.all in all successful on TV, where the golden circle of entry, thanks to technology, has unified distances. At the stadium the effect was of a long and very empty parade: inevitable, it was the biggest unknown of the widespread Olympics. Much has redeemed Italy, which entered to the rhythm of an accelerated Rossini Bravo Bravissimo: a witty and entertaining soundtrack.
Video: 5. net of the very nice idea of tram driven by Valentino Rossithe others have the effect of very glossy and sugary commercials, with a certain resemblance to the advertisements of one of the main sponsors. The animated one by Sabrina Impacciatore is too long and a little out of style compared to the rest.
Choreographies: 9 overall. Elegance prevails, from 10 the dove of peace, (with praise for the theme as a common thread) instead of the flight of the pigeons and the golden circles with the city-mountain embrace in the air, from 4 the ultra-kitsch detail of Rossini-Puccini-Verdi dancing Milano Cortina to the notes of Vamos a la playa by Righeira, you just can’t see them.
Speeches: 6 1/2. Media between Giovanni Malagò, president of the organizing committee, a little too long and a little predictable and Kirsty Coventry, who knew how to speak to the athletes with authenticity and warmth, sending a message of hope to the best of youth.
Hidden references: 10. The references to Leonardo are suggestive, refined and subtle (the knots evoked by the brazier), and to the resonance wood of Stradivari violins, which probably sourced from spruce trees in Val di Fiemme, in the performance of violinist Andrea Zanon playing a 1716 Stradivarius.
The choice of the last torchbearers: 10 cum laude. They are all there: Alberto Tomba and Deborah Compagnoni in Milan, Sofia Goggia in Cortina. You couldn’t ask for anything better. But also Bergomi and Baresi and the national volleyball teams to pass the lights at San Siro, and Manuela Di Centa and Gerda Weissensteiner, then Gustav Thoni to launch the last torchbearer in Cortina.
Stadium press room: reviewable, round tables and a few very distant sockets, a little complicated to manage.
Audience: 8+. for the patience in the parade in the cold, for being able to distinguish, for the affection shown to the volunteers.
Sergio Mattarella: 30 cum laude. The President of the Republic is the real star of the Ceremony, open stage applause, for his closeness to sport, and the smiling self-irony with which he lends himself to shooting the video that takes him to San Siro on an old Milanese tram driven by Valentino Rossi. He has the favor of the public and also of the athletes, to whom he transmits a polite and authentic passion, seriousness without seriousness in a politics that too often swells with anger and empty rhetoric. In the next few days he will be in Cortina to follow races.
