The Games of the XXXIII Olympiad have come to a bittersweet end. The past two weeks brimmed with athletic excellence, passion, and two ceremonies that were gloriously French. The clock is already ticking with a world wondering how the city of Los Angeles (hosting the 2028 summer Olympics) will surpass the past two weeks of intense emotion, and an Olympic alpha and omega which left lasting impressions. What follows is a look into the beautiful, the bold, and the passionately controversial moments from Paris 2024’s opening and closing ceremonies.

A look back on an opening ceremony rich in culture, history, symbolism, and controversy

It took none other than French-Moroccan actor, comedian, and national treasure Jamel Debbouze to kick off the long awaited Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony. After carrying the Olympic torch into an empty Stade de France, realizing the ceremony was not taking place in the Saint-Denis stadium, he was greeted by French soccer star and legend Zinedine “Zizou” Zidane who was there to save the day.

The ceremony began in earnest as Zidane carried the Olympic torch into the City of Light by Paris Métro, an institution in itself inaugurated on July 19, 1900 at the World’s Fair Exposition Universelle, le bilan d’un siècle. Three children wearing the Bleu Blanc Rouge (French colors), representing France’s youth, potential, and future, took the relay. They carried the flame into the Paris Catacombs honoring 7 million souls buried in the more than 200-year-old ossuary.

As the remains of the dead and of France’s past rest beneath a city teeming with life, it was on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s famous musical theme from his Phantom of the Opera that the children came upon a mysterious figure in a barque gliding on Paris’s underground Canal Saint-Martin. The mysterious, masked individual was not the Phantom of the Paris Opera. He was the embodiment of Humanity. As the children stepped into the barque, it was into the hands of Humanity that they entrusted the Olympic flame, and their own future.

These symbolic images and scenes continued throughout the event, taking the world’s greatest athletes along with 28.6 million viewers on a ride through France’s history, from its most beloved and iconic cultural achievements, to its darkest hours.

It took French audacity and courage to break away from over 100 years of Olympic tradition and set the stage of the XXXIII Olympiad not in a stadium, but on the River Seine come rain or shine. (The word Seine is phonetically the same as ‘scène’ which literally translates to ‘stage’).

More than 6,800 athletes from over 200 nations attending the opening ceremony were introduced to the world in a Parade of Nations not as modern gladiators on display, but as conquering heroes. They were brought in on a fleet of river boats starting at Pont d’Austerlitz (evoking Napoleon’s victory over the Russian and Austrian empires in the Battle of Austerlitz) and docking 3.7 miles downriver at Pont d’Iena near the Trocadero, where the grand finale took place on the world’s most beloved tower – La Dame de Fer (The Iron Lady) – a sparkling Eiffel Tower standing for 137 years, inaugurated at the 1889 World’s Fair.

A winged accordionist perched on a bridge got the party started with La Foule, one of Edith Piaf’s most entrancing songs. The ceremony’s opening act was Lady Gaga singing the technically challenging French cabaret number by Zizi Jeanmaire, Mon Truc en Plumes. Gaga proved once again she is a force of nature with her spectacular song and dance performance.

Throughout the entire event the ceremony’s artistic director took the world on a wild cultural and historical ride around a series of tableaux or themes: Ça ira, emblematic song of the French Revolution; Enchanté, launching the Parade of Nations; Sychronicité, during which Notre Dame’s cathedral bells were heard for the first time since a terrible fire claimed its original spire and roof on April 15, 2019.

Street performances were seen during the Sportivité segment. The contentious Festivité was a tribute to France’s fashion runway, to freedom of expression, and to the Dionysian spirit of hedonism. An energetic techno dance performance was seen in Obscurité. During Solidarité the bearer of the Olympic flag cloaked in shining armor and riding a galloping metallic horse across the Seine, symbolized the Olympic spirit of resilience, strength, peace, solidarity and unity – a visually stunning scene.

Spectacular performances were given around France’s motto Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité. Great women of France were honored during Sororité, including Simone Veil – French magistrate, survivor of the Holocaust, politician and Health Minister who, along with 343 advocates of women’s rights paved the way for the 1975 Veil Act giving women access to proper health care and abortion rights in France.

The closing themes of the ceremony – Solemnité and Éternité – were just that: solemn and eternal moments that elevate the human spirit.

It wouldn’t have been an Olympic ceremony worthy of France without controversy and shock, culminating with dozens of beheaded Marie-Antoinettes ironically singing the revolutionary song Ça ira (it’ll be fine), adorned in red Rococo dresses and standing in the dark windows of the Conciergerie where she, along with thousands of others, were jailed before being guillotined during the French Revolution.

The macabre scene was intensified with an unprecedented performance by French heavy metal band Gojira, opera singer Marina Viotti singing Georges Bizet’s l’Amour est un oiseau rebelle, and a row of Grim Reapers in black robes and white masks. Pyrotechnics and a sea of red streamers lining the front of the Conciergerie symbolized the rivers of blood in Paris during La Grande Terreur (the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror), during which 300,000 people were arrested, 17,000 were executed, and 10,000 died in prison, many without a trial.

Four hours of world class performances on the Seine riverbank and bridges added a joyful, sparkling counterpoint to the shocking, the controversial, and the macabre. Showgirls wearing white and pink costumes danced the traditional French Cancan to Jacques Offenbach’s Galop infernal from his 1858 operetta Orphée aux enfers.

Humanity holding the flame (the masked individual running across the Paris rooftops in parkour style, Olympic torch in hand), took us on an exciting adventure in the Louvre; around the reconstruction of Notre Dame depicted by a dance choreography on scaffolding; through an artistic instillation of Louis Vuitton craftsmanship, and the minting of the Olympic medals carried in the iconic Vuitton trunk.

Musical France gave its very best with Axelle Saint-Cirel holding an imposing French flag atop the Grand Palais, looking like the Marianne personified in a stunning Dior dress, while singing the Marseillaise in a deeply moving performance showing off her crystalline mezzo soprano voice. Bits of Charles Aznavour’s For Me Formidable were sung in a modernized medley by Aya Nakamura accompanied by a dancing and joyfully disciplined Garde républicaine.

French rapper Rim’K (Verlan for Abdelkrim) sang ‘King’ and gave a shout-out to Snoop Dogg. Juliette Armanet sang John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ in a tear-jerking performance, accompanied beautifully on a piano in flames by Sofiane Pamart on a floating river barge. Pianist Alexandre Kantorow played Maurice Ravel’s Jeux d’eau (Water Games) effortlessly – in the pouring rain – a brilliant performance in a perfectly Parisian setting.

At the raising of the Olympic flag, the French National Orchestra and the Radio France Choir gave a stirring performance of the Olympic anthem, composed for the first modern Olympic games in 1896 by Greek composer Spyridon Samaras with lyrics by poet Kostis Palamas.

The pyrotechnics at the Concorde on Aznavour’s La Boheme were spectacular. The swaying pole acrobats depicting passion’s ebb and flow during the ode to love and to French literature, were mesmerizing. The Eiffel Tower light show before the lighting of the Olympic cauldron was magical. The Olympic flame carried by Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams, Carl Lewis, and Nadia Comaneci in a boat speeding down the River Seine was glorious.

The romantic cauldron lit by French athletes and Olympic gold medalists Marie-José Pérec and Teddy Riner in the Jardin des Tuileries, was a tribute to the Montgolfier brothers who successfully carried out the first hot air balloon flight at Versailles in 1783.

Living legend Celine Dion gave the grand finale, singing Hymne à l’amour accompanied by her musical director – pianist Scott Price – under the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower. She looked like the angelic embodiment of Love, Liberty, and la colombe de la paix (the peace dove) in her dazzling white Dior dress, which took a thousand hours to create. Despite suffering from the debilitating stiff person syndrome, she showed the world she is still a powerhouse with a timeless, soul-stirring voice.

A closing ceremony that could not live up to an epic opening

Olympic closing ceremonies are always bittersweet as their purpose is to close two weeks of the world coming together, experiencing an emotionally intense glimpse into a world in which peace between nations prevails.

Paris set the bar extremely high during the opening ceremony – a tough act to follow even for the organizers of the Paris Olympics – as it not only brought the world together, but it broke away from over a century of tradition.

The closing ceremony took place in the Saint-Denis Stade de France. Its Parade of Nations was a lackluster answer to the opening ceremony’s glorious Fleet of Nations on the River Seine. It was a static and tedious return to a tradition in which Olympic athletes are brought in as modern gladiators on display, as opposed to the conquering heroes we saw a few weeks ago.

The main show was built around the theme of rediscovery. It was the story of an alien-like Golden Voyager arriving on Earth to a desolate, dystopian future, in a world where the Olympics no longer exist. The scenes were a dark, melancholic counterpoint to the epic fortnight that preceded.

A few stunning visuals and performances added a much-needed break from the dark, dystopian imagery: the Golden Voyager whose spectacular costume was created by Swiss designer Kevin Germanier;  two performers in the center of a giant Olympic ring evoking Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man; five giant rings slowly lifted in the air and coming together to form the Olympic emblem representing the original five continents and the world’s athletes; the light show of scenes from Ancient Greece; a suspended grand piano played vertically by pianist Alain Roche, adorned in a long shimmering black robe while accompanying French tenor Benjamin Bernheim in Fauré’s ‘Hymn to Apollo.’

Following this dramatic opening act, the party started with a lively performance by French rock band Phoenix. After the traditional lowering of the Olympic flag, the singing of the Olympic anthem, and extinguishing of the flame, the most spectacular part of the closing ceremony was Tom Cruise, introduced on the musical theme from ‘Mission Impossible,’ jumping into the stadium hanging from a wire. He was handed the Olympic flag and rode out of the stadium Maverick-style on a motorcycle.

In a pre-recorded performance, Cruise was seen riding through the streets of Paris with the Olympic flag mounted on his motorcycle – an incredibly stunning visual. He brought the flag back to America, parachuted into California, raised the Olympic rings onto the Hollywood sign, and gave the flag to the Angelenos who will be hosting the Olympic games in four years. The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Billie Eilish, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre all gave performances on the Long Beach shoreline, officially starting the countdown to the XXXIV Olympiad.

Back at the Stade de France, French singer-songwriter Yseult gave a moving performance of the song ‘My Way,’ officially closing the Paris Olympics upon an eruption of fireworks illuminating the night sky.

The closing ceremony had spectacular moments, and was a moving tribute to these Olympic games and its athletes. But it will always live in the shadow of the Paris 2024 opening – an impossible act to follow only two weeks after the fact.

Paris sets the bar high with an unforgettable opening ceremony

After the end, one cannot help but cast another look at the beginning. Paris 2024’s opening ceremony was epic. It set the tone for the 9.7 billion dollar games with a lavish show of strength, artistic freedom, beauty, and brilliance. It was stupendous, bold, shockingly controversial and magnificently French. It proved that Paris is still the City of Love, city of art and music, and a place of brazen creativity.

The belle of the ball during the opening ceremony was the city of Paris at its most beautiful – glistening under the rain – with the best musicians and artists of the world coming together in a moment of peace and of pure joy, to honor the Olympic games and the Olympians who give everything to their sport.

The act that stole the show was France’s act of friendship towards Canada and the United States with opening and closing performances by American and Canadian superstars. That was more than an act of friendship between nations. That was Love.

With a scintillating Eiffel Tower, a world delegation of Olympians honored like never before, and the most romantic Olympic cauldron ever created floating high in the Parisian sky, the opening ceremony ended on the highest note, with Celine Dion singing in strength and conviction her song’s final words: Dieu réunit ceux qui s’aiment – God unites those who love each other. Paris, in an eternal moment of hope, you united the entire world.