MILAN — Tenor Andrea Bocelli will be among the headliners at the opening ceremony of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics on Feb. 6, alongside previously announced pop star Mariah Carey, organizers said Sunday.
The opening ceremony will take place in Milan’s San Siro football stadium, with the parade of athletes and entertainment during the three-hour spectacle expected to be the most watched moment of the Games.
Reflecting the status of the Milan Cortina Games as the most extensive Olympic Games in history, elements of the opening ceremony will also take place in three other venues, allowing athletes from all the most diverse disciplines to take part. The moments will be broadcast to the television audience from Cortina in the heart of the Dolomites, Livigno in the Italian Alps as well as Predazzo in the autonomous province of Trento.
The ceremony will also include a tribute to the late Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani, who died in September at the age of 91. Armani has long designed the Italian team’s Olympic uniforms, and his legacy as one of the founders of Italian ready-to-wear is closely linked to Milan, where he left his mark with the Armani Theater, the Silos Museum and sponsorship of the EA7 Emporio Armani Milano basketball team.
Bocelli, a classically trained singer whose recordings include classical and pop music, performed for the coronation of King Charles III and for the 75th anniversary of the Italian Constitution in Rome. In an album titled “Duets (30th Anniversary),” Bocelli sings in Italian, English, French and Spanish, collaborating with musicians ranging from Karol G to Chris Stapleton.
He will appear at the Olympic ceremony during a break in his world tour, according to his official schedule, traveling the next day to perform at the Schottenstein Center in Columbus, Ohio, on February 7, followed by six more dates in the United States.
Bocelli’s performance “will constitute one of the most iconic moments of the event, uniting the spectacle with the essence of the Olympic values,” organizers said in a statement, adding that Bocelli’s inclusion “will bring a contemporary and global tone to the narrative.”
Details of the ceremony, performed by Marco Balich, veteran of more than a dozen Olympic ceremonies, have emerged over the past few months.
Carey, the first named international star to perform at San Siro, adds an American pop star pedigree to the opening event. The six-time Grammy Award winner announced her participation in an Instagram post saying “Ci vediamo a Milano” — Italian for “See you soon in Milan.”
Italian actors Sabrina Impacciatore, who appeared in the second season of HBO’s “The White Lotus,” and Matilde De Angelis, who starred in the Netflix series “Lydia Poet’s Law,” will also participate in the opening ceremony, organizers said.
A crowd of 60,000 spectators is expected and millions more are watching on television.
Internationally renowned ballet star Roberto Bolle will headline the closing ceremony, scheduled to take place in Verona’s ancient Roman arena on February 22.
