The Rio Olympics opening ceremony began at 7pm eastern time Friday but NBC decided a few weeks ago to delay coverage for an hour. NBC's coverage started at 7:30pm but the opening ceremony started at 8pm.
The opening ceremony was directed by Fernando Meirelles and Daniela Thomas. A projection system was used for some of the special effects used in this ceremony.
The opening ceremony started out by images of the city of Rio de Janeiro. A music video of the song "Aquele Abraco" was playing. The song in the video was performed by Luis Melodia. The Brazilian national anthem was performed by Paulinho da Viola along side a string orchestra. Then the Brazilian flag was raised.
There was a segment that showed the illusion of water to a rain forest signaling the arrival of the Portuguese people. The indigenous people was represented by 72 dancers. This was portrayed by using vine like ropes configured in different patterns.
Supermodel Gisele Bundchen walked the catwalk to the song "The Girl from Ipanema." It was performed by Daniel Jobim.
The ceremony addressed Brazil's racial divide through European colonization and slave trade. Climate change was also addressed. Brazil's favelas were also highlighted, which addresses the divide between rich and poor in Brazil
There was a segment that disputes the USA's the Wright brothers were the first to fly. Brazil portrays Alberto Santos-Dumont as the first to fly. The segment ends with this aviator flying around the city of Rio.
A segment about the urbanization of Brazil was portrayed as ethnic groups of Brazil jumping across raised buildings. This represents the metropolis of San Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
There were rappers to bring an edge and tension to Brazil's music.
The parade of nations featured 207 nations. The countries marched in order of the Portuguese alphabet. The United States(Estados Unidos in Portuguese)) has 554 athletes, Australia 420 athletes, Canada 314 athletes, China 404 athletes, South Korea 212 athletes, Spain 309 athletes, France 398 athletes, Great Britain 371 athletes, Russia 271 athletes and Brazil, who went last has 469 athletes. Refugee athletes marched just before Brazil.
Next, there were Samba dancers from schools in Rio. The singers in this segment were, Anitta, Caetano and Gilberto Gil.
The torch entered the stadium. Gustavo Kuerten passed the torch to Hortencia Marcari who passed the torch to Olympic Marathoner Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima. de Lima lit the Cauldron to great applause.
This was a good opening ceremony considering it's budget was half of the London games opening ceremony. Projection systems were used to create some of the images in the ceremony.
NBC's coverage of the opening ceremony was lacking. Usually the opening ceremony is not nearly edited as the closing ceremony but because of the one hour delay in broadcasting, NBC severely edited segments, which took away from the flow of the ceremony. Commercials were every five minutes at the beginning. During the parade of nations there was a 15 minute commercial free segment.
The hashtag NBCfail was tending on Twitter. The overnight rating of 16.5 was the lowest since the 1992 games opening ceremony.
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