Some critics dismiss Olympics opening ceremonies as little more than extended Super Bowl halftime shows. On the other hand, fans adore them, blubbering like babies the minute the first athletes from the 77-nation parade enter the stadium. Love them or hate them, the opening ceremonies are a carefully choreographed piece of political theater that sets the mood for the Games and serves as a global infomercial for the host country. The first gathering of nations since 9-11, this Friday’s show must present an “It’s a Small World” celebration of athletic unity at a time of war and terror. “It cannot be an historical pageant,” says Don Mischer, the executive producer of both this year’s and Atlanta’s 1996 opening ceremonies. “It has to be stirring, and emotional, and re-establish the good, fundamental ideals of the Olympics.” All in two hours, with no dialogue, under the scrutiny of worldwide media and a TV audience of 3 billion. Who said the quadruple toe loop is the hardest thing to land?
With such high stakes, Olympics organizers are being as cryptic about the show’s lineup as Dick Cheney is about his meetings with Enron. Nowhere is that secrecy more profound than in the selection of the caldron lighter, a pick always kept close to the vest to heighten the drama. Who can forget Muhammad Ali’s shaky lighting of the Olympic flame in Atlanta? Mischer can’t. “If people know what’s coming, their mind creates images that are very hard to live up to,” says Mischer, who rehearsed Ali by flashlight at 2:30 a.m. to preserve the surprise. This time, the loose-lips-sink-ships mantra affects every aspect of the show. Mischer picked his fireworks vendor for the show after clandestine auditions in the Utah desert. And when NBC prematurely leaked word that Sting, the Dixie Chicks and LeAnn Rimes were performing in the opening event, Olympics organizers hit the roof, and were forced to announce the musical lineup a week earlier than planned. NBC called to apologize.
If it takes a village to raise a child, it requires a small city to put hundreds of them on ice skates. NEWSWEEK was given access to closed rehearsals last month, as ice choreographer Sarah Kawahara directed a battalion of youngsters with all the precision of a military exercise. The skating Salt Lakers were supposed to first do a series of twirls, and then come to a sudden stop and salute the athletes. But the kids were having a bit of trouble with the arm movements. “Don’t have them go like this,” artistic director Kenny Ortega (“Dirty Dancing”) counseled Kawahara, snapping his right arm skyward. “Because it looks like ‘heil Hitler’.” Though tired and shivering as they rehearsed into the night at Rice-Eccles Olympic Stadium, the small skaters nailed it the next time.
Security may be the No. 1 concern for most participants and spectators, but to Mischer and crew, lousy weather is the big fear. A blizzard dumped six inches of snow last Feb. 8, and a repeat performance this season would make howling wind–not the musicians–the show’s star. So Mischer has decided to have the entire show lip-synced, but unlike Milli Vanilli, these performers are at least matching their own voices. So the Mormon Tabernacle Choir will fake it on the national anthem.
The opening ceremonies are budgeted at $40 million, but to make ends meet, the producers have relied on volunteers, last-minute fund-raisers and freebies–even the natural gas and propane powering the 117-foot-tall Olympic Caldron is donated by the local utility Questar Gas. More than 12,000 people auditioned to perform in the opening ceremonies; those picked include a local high school’s championship ballroom-dancing team and one 82-year-old Native American performer. The Utah Symphony (performing with student-quality instruments to protect the good stuff from weather) had to raise $300,000 in order to play, and all music acts are working for scale and must pay for their own backup singers. For all his effort, little Charlie Fratto gets to keep his costume, but his parents have to pay to watch the show.
But what exactly will the show be about? Organizers are more candid about what it won’t be. What they say is that hardly any changes have been made to reflect the terrorist attacks. “If our show is just America, America, America, we only connect with one audience,” says Mitt Romney, president of the Salt Lake Organiz-ing Committee. Likewise, Romney says, viewers shouldn’t fear a presentation that resembles a Mormon Church diorama. “We won’t ignore the history of the church, but we’re not going to have a tribute to Brigham Young.” It’s a double-edged sword: Summon familiar icons and you’re excoriated for perpetuating stereotypes. Ignore something, or depict it wrongly, and you’ve committed a worse crime. To ensure that local Native American tribes are represented accurately, Mischer and Ortega traveled the state for eight days, meeting with representatives from several nations, studying their symbols and cultures and searching for common musical ground among the tribes. “No matter what we do, someone will feel something is omitted,” Mischer says. “That’s the hardest part of the process. Deciding what’s right.”
Nowhere is that decision more important than in picking the final torchbearer. Mischer and Romney say they won’t make their selection until this week. Will it be figure-skating darling Dorothy Hamill? Speed-skating hero Bonnie Blair? America’s gold-medal-winning 1980 ice-hockey team? If the message of these Games is really unity, there’s only one perfect selection: dueling ice divas Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding, together with joined hands, holding the torch aloft.
