Shoals of samba dancers flowed in a rainbow of colours, but many showed less flesh than normal for Brazil, seemingly mindful of their global TV audience. Grammy award winners Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, and supermodel Gisele Bündchen were featured.
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Brazil detained 12 people for suspected links to ISIS last month but it has insisted that the risk of an attack at the Games is minimal.
Given the country’s obsession with football, this was characterised by the country’s writers as Brazil’s ‘ Hiroshima’ or ‘ Waterloo’.
“May this be the moment for us to overcome hard times and to work as a team, to make our country and our world fairer and safer”, said Archbishop Orani Joao Tempesta, flanked by Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes. Brazil was also the last country in the Americas to outlaw slavery – they waited until 1888.
” The world is very tense and so is Brazil”.
The ceremony’s creative director Fernando Meirelles had less money to spend than his predecessors, including the mastermind of London 2012’s memorable show Danny Boyle, but he promised “the coolest party” and gave it a good go.
There were signs of the austere times in the form of the ceremony.
“It is the first morning of the Olympic crowd and some of the systems did not talk to each other”.
The opening ceremony began at 03:00 by Baku time at the Maracana stadium. Those are sustainability, particularly re-forestation; finding joy in life and in being Brazilian; and the idea of “gambiarra,”the quirky Brazilian art of improvising repairs using whatever parts are available”.
A skill which is as necessary as ever here and can have have comedic and chaotic consequences.
“Smile is the approach the Brazilians have toward life,”said Marco Balich, the executive producer”.
But there were big cheers for nations with large immigrant communities in Brazil, such as Italy and Japan, and roars for the more recognisable flag bearers such as Rafa Nadal and Michael Phelps. “They’re saying in this ceremony, we are who we are, with a lot of social problems, a lot of crises in the political system, etc”. The stadium does not have typical Olympic dimensions – there is no track. The only Olympic events it is hosting are soccer matches.
The Games were declared open by acting president Michel Temer, who restricted himself to just 14 words but was loudly booed.
Conservative Temer took office in May when President Dilma Rousseff was placed on trial on charges of breaking budget laws, prompting her supporters to accuse him of staging a “coup”.
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As well as a showcase for Brazil’s history, culture, diversity and hopes, the gala also represented a triumph, because there were times after the International Olympic Committee selected Rio ahead of Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid in 2009 when it seemed that the city of 6.5 million people might not get its act together for the world’s greatest sporting mega-event. Until then, it will be a pageant in which Rio will laugh, cry, sing, celebrate and have fun.
