The opening ceremony of the 1992 Summer Olympics took place on the evening of Saturday 25 July 1992 at Estadi Olímpic de Montjuïc, Barcelona, Spain, during which the Games were formally opened by KingJuan Carlos I. As mandated by the Olympic Charter, the proceedings combined the formal and ceremonial opening of this international sporting event, including welcoming speeches, hoisting of the flags and the parade of athletes, with an artistic spectacle to showcase the host nation's culture and history.
The ceremony began at 20:00 CEST and lasted just over three hours. It was the first Summer Games opening to be carried out at dusk, taking advantage of the darkness as a dramatic effect and playing with artificial lighting to give it more spectacularity, something that has become a standard since then. It was watched by an estimated worldwide television audience of 3.5 billion and had a total cost of 2.8 billion pesetas (€16.8 million). It was the largest gathering of international dignitaries for an Olympic –and sporting– event until then.
The ceremony was conceived by publicists Luis Bassat [es] and Pepo Sol. La Fura dels Baus performed an allegory of the creation of the Mediterranean Sea and the founding of the city of Barcelona. Greek mezzo-soprano Agnes Baltsa sang "Hellenism" as the Olympic flag was taken around the stadium. Alfredo Kraus sang the Olympic Hymn as the flag was hoisted. The Olympic flame cauldron was lit by a flaming arrow, shot by Paralympic archer Antonio Rebollo. The arrow had been lit by the flame of the Olympic Torch. Rebollo overshot the cauldron[1] which was the original design of the lighting scheme.[2][3]
Preparations
The opening ceremony was conceived by publicists Luis Bassat [es] and Pepo Sol, who came together for the occasion creating the production company Ovideo-Bassat-Sport. The artistic director of the ceremony was Manuel Huerga, its executive musical director Josep Pons, its executive director Ric Birch and its production director Cuqui Pons. Judich Chabola, an expert in moving masses of people, was hired for the choreographies, with the help of the Liceu stage manager Xesca Llabrés.[4]
The ceremony was attended by 65,000 people at the stadium, of which between 20,000 and 25,000 were the general public and the rest were made up of the Olympic family. Tickets for the general public had three price categories: 46,000 pesetas (€276.47) for the grandstand tickets, 18,000 pesetas (€108.18) for preferential tickets, and 9,000 pesetas (€54.09) for general tickets.[5] The ceremony had a total cost of 2.8 billion pesetas (€16.8 million).[6]
Music
The opening ceremony featured incidental music composed specifically for the occasion by Ryuichi Sakamoto, Angelo Badalamenti and Carlos Miranda and an Olympic fanfare by Carles Santos.[7] There were two additional main songs composed for the Games. One was "Barcelona", composed five years earlier by Freddie Mercury and sung as a duet with Montserrat Caballé. Due to Mercury's death eight months earlier, the duo was unable to perform the song during the opening ceremony. A recording of the song instead played over a travelogue of the city at the start of the broadcast.[8] The second song was "Amigos Para Siempre", composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black. In the opening ceremony, it was performed by a choir while an Olympic flag covered the athletes.[9]
Proceedings
Countdown
A fifty-second countdown with twenty-five bangs, one for each Olympics, preceded the ceremony, with the audience present at the stadium doing the final countdown in the four official languages of the event: French, Catalan, English and Spanish.[a]
¡Hola!
At 20:00 CEST, the stadium speakers, Constantino Romero and Inka Martí, welcomed the audience in the four official languages while 800 artists simulating flowers and birds, remembering Las Ramblas, began to move on the blue rug that covered the central field of the stadium accompanied by the "Olympic fanfare" composed by Carles Santos and played by seventy-four musicians with drums, trumpets and tenoras. The artists came together to form the word ¡Hola!, while the audience present shouted the greeting several times to welcome the world. Subsequently, they transformed the word into the winking logo of the city of Barcelona first and into the logo of the 1992 Olympic Games later.
At 20:07 CEST, Montserrat Caballé and José Carreras, accompanied by cobla La Principal de la Bisbal [es], sang "Sou benvinguts", a welcoming Olympic sardana composed by Josep Lluís Moraleda and Lluís Serrahima, while a giant circle dance was formed by 600 dancers dressed in white in the center of the stadium in the shape of the five Olympic rings. The same cobla then played the "Cant de la Senyera", a Catalan popular song composed by Lluís Millet in 1896, while the dancers took the shape of a heart after which 1,500 doves were released.
At 20:30 CEST, La Fura dels Baus performed the segment called "El Mar Mediterráneo" accompanied with incidental music composed and conducted by Ryuichi Sakamoto. Hercules, who appeared in the form of a giant competing in the first Olympic Games, opened the Pillars of Hercules, separating Africa from Europe, and creating the Mediterranean Sea. A boat appeared among the waves, which unfurled its sails and prepared to fight against a series of sea monsters which it defeated thanks to divine intervention and allegorically founding the city of Barcelona, as a symbol of civilization. Finally, the Catalan traditional song "Virolai [es]", composed by Josep Rodoreda [es] in 1880 and adapted by Sakamoto himself, is performed.
At 20:53 CEST, following eighty gymnasts waving ribbons with the Olympic colors, the parade of nations began, starting with the Greek team, accompanied by the beat of a march composed and conducted by Carlos Miranda. Due to Olympic Charter rules, the Catalan independence movement, and concerns over the Spanish language being given undue prominence over the Catalan language, the national teams entered in alphabetical order in French.[10]
Brunei participated in the parade, but its delegation consisted of only one official.[b][11][12] The Afghan delegation did not arrive in time to participate in the opening ceremony, but its flag was paraded by a volunteer.[13]Liberia[14] and Somalia[15] also participated in the parade, but its accredited athletes (five and two, respectively) also didn't arrive in time for the ceremony.[11]
At 22:02 CEST, the last and host team, the Spanish team, entered the stadium marching behind its flag bearer Felipe, then Prince of Asturias. After going around the stadium, they took their place next to the rest of the athletes, covering the entire field.
At 22:21 CEST, King Juan Carlos I inaugurated the Games with the following words: "Benvinguts tots a Barcelona. Hoy, 25 de julio del año 1992, declaro abiertos los Juegos Olímpicos de Barcelona que celebran la XXV Olimpiada de la era moderna".[c]
At 20:30 CEST, twenty-five top models, including Judit Mascó and Inés Sastre, exhibited dresses designed by thirteen Spanish couturiers representing the twenty-five host cities of the Games. While, through the central corridor created by the athletes, twenty-five Olympic flags carried by twenty-five children entered, representing each edition of the games. For the edition of 1916, canceled by the World War I, and for the 1940 and 1944 editions, canceled by the World War II, the dove of peace designed by Pablo Picasso replaced the Olympic rings.
At 22:36 CEST, the Olympic flame entered the stadium, accompanied by music composed by Angelo Badalamenti and carried by Herminio Menéndez, who passed it to the last reliever Juan Antonio San Epifanio. The Paralympic archer Antonio Rebollo, who was waiting for him on stage, lit an arrow with the Olympic flame upon his arrival and shot it towards the cauldron. The arrow passed over the cauldron, which was emitting gas, which ignited, causing the entire audience to rejoice.
Olympic oath
At 22:42 CEST, Luis Doreste and Eugeni Asensio, representing the athletes and judges, took the Olympic oath.
Friends for life
At 22:43 CEST, sixty-two youth volunteers entered the central strip of the field holding the largest flag ever made until then, a 114 by 74 metres (374 ft × 243 ft) Olympic flag that had the same size of the stadium field. It was unfolded over the athletes accompanied by the symphonic version of "Amigos Para Siempre", composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black, sang by a choir in English, Spanish and Catalan. Shortly after the ceremony, the flag was cut into 267,560 small pieces that were numbered and sold as a form of souvenir and funding for the Games.[16]
At 23:08 CEST, Eleazar Colomé, a thirteen year old boy, performed Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" alongside the six opera singers and the choirs Orfeó Català, Coral Sant Jordi [es] and Coral Càrmina [ca] while a large fireworks display closed the opening ceremony.
The ceremony was the largest gathering of international dignitaries for an Olympic and sporting event until then, with many heads of state or government and representatives of foreign governments seated at the presidential box, and with almost all of the Ibero-American leaders present, due to the celebration of the 2nd Ibero-American Summit in Madrid the previous days. Foreign dignitaries present included French François Mitterrand, German Helmut Kohl, South African Nelson Mandela, Cuban Fidel Castro and Argentinian Carlos Menem.
The ceremony was reported to have an audience of 3.5 billion viewers worldwide. In Spain itself it had an audience of 5,957,000 viewers in average, which represented a 62.4% share, making it, to date, the most viewed opening ceremony of the Olympic Games ever.[17] In the US, it had an estimated audience of 52 million viewers, with a Nielsen rating of 13.8 and an audience share of 29%.[18]
Legacy
The opening ceremony of the 1992 Summer Olympics was a turning point in the implementation of Olympic ceremonies and influenced those that followed. It was the first to be carried out at dusk, taking advantage of the darkness as a dramatic effect and playing with artificial lighting to give it more spectacularity, something that has become a standard since then. A large flag covering the athletes was a motif reused in the 2000 and 2004 opening ceremonies.[19] The song "Hellenism", composed by Mikis Theodorakis, was used again in 2004.
^Translated: "Welcome everyone to Barcelona. Today, 25 July 1992, I declare open the Barcelona Olympic Games that celebrate the XXV Olympiad of the modern era".
