The 2024 Paris Olympics have had a lot to recommend them: an array of impossibly beautiful backdrops; a starry cast of commentators, including the likes of Alex Cooper and Snoop Dogg; and competitors like Simone Biles, Sha’Carri Richardson, Katie Ledecky, and Coco Gauff that viewers everywhere are thrilled to get behind.
It was only fitting, then, that the Games should begin in spectacular fashion. French theater director Thomas Jolly helmed an opening ceremony unlike any the Games had seen before—unfolding along the River Seine with all manner of top-tier performers on hand to animate the route.
As a crowd including Sarah Jessica Parker, Tom Cruise, Mick Jagger, Pharrell Williams, Christopher Maloney, Elizabeth Banks, John Legend, Chrissy Teigen, Greta Gerwig, and thousands upon thousands of Parisians looked on, these were some of the very best moments of the Paris 2024 opening ceremony:
The start of the procession
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After an extended prologue that showed famed French soccer coach and former player Zinedine Zidane—also known as Zizou—ferrying the Olympic torch from the Stade de France to the Seine, the ceremony proper began with a bang. An explosion of bleu, blanc, and rouge raining over the Austerlitz Bridge gave way to the (waterborne) parade of nations, starting, as ever, with the Greek delegation.
Lady Gaga turning the Seine into a cabaret
“Bonsoir, bienvenue en Paris!” Lady Gaga cried as she kicked off her long-rumored performance at the opening ceremony, doing a joyous rendition of Zizi Jeanmaire’s classic standard “Mon Truc En Plumes.” Surrounded by dancers wielding flamingo-pink pompoms, Gaga was dressed in Dior Haute Couture.
The sense of theater—and the heavy metal
Jolly’s opening ceremony drew on all kinds of performing arts, stitching together musical phrases from The Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables, Georges Bizet’s Carmen, and a thrilling set by the French heavy metal band Gojira at the Conciergerie. (Later on, in another engaging display of Paris’s cultural diversity, the rapper Rim’K, wearing a checkered jacket by Louis Vuitton, performed his song “King.”)
The teeming world of la danse was accounted for, too: As troupe of modern dancers splashed near the Notre Dame and acrobats flew over the Pont Neuf, Guillaume Diop—the first Black principal dancer at the Paris Opera Ballet—did a lyrical solo.
Aya Nakamura seizing the Pont de la Concorde
Aya Nakamura, wearing a feathery gold Dior Haute Couture mini, gave a rousing performance of her hit 2018 singles “Pookie” and “Djadja.” She was joined by a gaggle of dancers (also in Dior), as well as the Orchestre de la Garde républicaine.
Take a closer look at her dress below:
The Jeux d’eau in the rain
French pianist Alexandre Kantorow gave a gorgeous performance of one of Ravel’s best-known pieces for piano—variously translated as “Fountains,” “Playing Water,” or “Water Games”—as the rain came down in Paris.
Axelle Saint-Cirel singing from the roof of the Grand Palais
The Parisian mezzo-soprano was a vision as she sang a stirring new arrangement of “La Marseillaise,” the national anthem of France. Her prettily draped, eight-meter-long dress, also by Dior Haute Couture, was actually of a piece with the French flag she brandished.
The fashion show!
The likes of Farida Khelfa, Ines Rau, and drag queen Nicky Doll turned a footbridge over the Seine into their catwalk during a segment of the ceremony inspired by the fashion industry’s deep roots in the French capital.
The stirring performance of “Imagine”
Continuing a charming tradition at the Games, French singer-songwriter Juliette Armanet performed John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s classic ballad from a boat on the Seine, accompanied by Sofian Pamart on a flaming piano.
The scene at the Trocadero…and then at the Tuileries
After a glowing mechanical horse carrying the Olympic flag flew down the Seine—and images and videos from Olympics past were spliced together into a rather affecting highlights reel, representing the achievements of athletes from around the world—a mysterious cloaked figure marched solemnly down the Trocadero, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, before the Olympic Hymn played.
Then, following remarks from Tony Estanguet, president of Paris 2024, and Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, King of Clay Rafael Nadal, Carl Lewis, Nadia Comăneci, and Serena Williams boarded a boat with the Olympic torch—headed in the opposite direction. Where were they going? To meet tennis legend Amélie Mauresmo, who, after a jog up to the Louvre, passed the torch on to a series of athletes, including former basketball player Tony Parker, former handball players Michaël Guigou Allison Pineau, and 100-year-old former cyclist Charles Coste.
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At the end of the relay were former sprinter Marie-José Pérec and judoka Teddy Riner, who lit up an enormous hot-air balloon in the Tuileries Garden.
Céline Dion performing from the Eiffel Tower
Dressed in a shimmering beaded Dior Haute Couture dress, Dion—who, as some may recall, sang “The Power of the Dream” at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta—made a much-anticipated appearance to perform “Hymne à L’Amour,” a song popularized by Edith Piaf in the 1950s. In so doing, she brought an utterly unforgettable opening ceremony to a thoroughly moving conclusion.
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