The Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony Was an Art-Filled Extravaganza

It was an unusually art-filled Olympics Opening Ceremony in Paris as the Parade of Nations traveled by boat down the River Seine. The Mona Lisa escaped from the Louvre to catch the occasion, braving the rain along with an expected 300,000 Parisians and visitors from around the world.

Carrying the Olympic torch throughout the festivities was a mysterious masked figure first seen in a rowboat in the Parisian catacombs. His face obscured, he wore a costume that recalled famous French characters the Phantom of the Opera and Arsène Lupin.

He dashed over the Parisian rooftops à la Assassin’s Creed Unity, ziplined over the Seine, and strode into the Louvre. He passed the Winged Nike of Samothrace at the entry staircase, and then into the galleries. The paintings began coming to life, their figures suddenly exiting the frames.

As the broadcast cut back to the river, the boats began passing monumental cut outs of faces from historic paintings in the Louvre collection.

There were Marie-Guillemine Benoist’s The Portrait of Madeleine (1803); Gabrielle d’Estrées and One of Her Sisters (1594); Relief of Seti I and Hathor; Portrait of Shah Abbas I and His Page; and Georges de la Tour’s The Card Sharp with the Ace of Diamonds (ca. 1636).

Each face was submerged below their nose, and their eyes moved to track the boats of athletes as they journeyed down to the Eiffel Tower.

“Some of those great works of art that we saw missing from the Louvre, I think I spy them there in the Seine,” NBC anchor Savannah Guthrie said. “They’ve made their escape—they didn’t want to miss it either.”

Back in the Louvre, the torch bearer paused suddenly in front of an escape tunnel gouged in the floor of one of the galleries. Looking up, there was broken glass and an empty frame: Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was on the run.

The famed painting revealed herself amid a tribute to French cinematic history that included nods to Georges Méliès’s A Trip to the Moon and the Lumière brothers’ The Arrival of a Train. The Minions, the cute and cuddly criminals from the Despicable Me franchise (produced by France’s Illumination studios) somehow got ahold of it.

The Mona Lisa survived target practice, only to wind up floating in the Seine in an admittedly strange bit.

She was in good company, however, with 10 new public statues of historic French women lining the river for the occasion. In a segment titled “Sororité,” or sisterhood, the monuments, which are being gifted to the city following the games, were unveiled one by one.

“It’s pretty special,” NBC commentator Kelly Clarkson said. “There are 260 statues of men in Paris public space, and only about 40 statues of women. These are some of the heroines of French history—writers, advocates, politicians.”

It was especially fitting for the first Olympic games to have an equal number of qualifying spots available for male and female athletes. The statues depicted Olympe de Gouges, Alice Milliat, Gisèle Halimi, Simone de Beauvoir, Paulette Nardal, Jeanne Barret, Louise Michel, Christine de Pizan, Simone Veil, and pioneering filmmaker Alice Guy Blaché.

The ceremony also paid tribute to the still-ongoing restoration of Notre-Dame. The historic cathedral suffered a devastating fire in 2019. President Emmanuel Macron initially vowed to rebuild the landmark in time for the Paris games. Instead, it will reopen in December.

But the painstaking work on the landmark was celebrated with a dance number on the scaffolding that currently surrounds the church. The sounds of the construction work became the music for the elaborately choreographed performance.

“This segment, ‘Synchronicité,’ honors those who have worked together to rebuild the cathedral,” NBC host Mike Tirico said.

While Notre-Dame is unable to take part in the games, other historic landmarks are becoming venues for the competition. The Palace of Versailles will host dressage test and jumping, while beach volleyball will take place in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

The 1889 tower also became a dramatic stage for the opening ceremony’s closing performance, with Canadian songstress Celine Dion singing Edith Piaf’s “L’Hymne à l’amour” from high up on the wrought-iron structure.

But before Dion sang us out, the final stretch of the torch relay returned to the courtyard of the Louvre, where French artist JR carried the flame earlier this month.

A series of 24 French Olympians carried the flame across to the Tuileries Garden, where final torch bearers Teddy Riner and Marie-José Pérec lit what Tirico called “the most unique Olympic cauldron we have ever seen.”

As a ring flames ignited, they gave flight to a 100-foot-tall hot air balloon created by French designer Mathieu Lehanneur. (He also masterminded this year’s streamlined, symmetrical torches.)

“It’s a tribute to the first flight made in a hydrogen-filled gas balloon,” Tirico said. “It was done by two French inventors right there in the garden of the Tuileries in 1783.”

That’s where the dramatic flame will burn for the next 19 days, aloft over the city, a new beacon in the city of light—let the games begin!

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