Music

The morning of the Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Summer Games, NBC Olympics prime-time producer Rob Hyland woke up a little before 7 a.m. in his Paris hotel room and had a sinking feeling. “I had some breakfast, looked out the window and noticed the rain falling,” he recalls to Billboard. “My first thought was, ‘Wow. This may literally put a damper on an unbelievably ambitious production.’”
In just a few hours, the eyes of the world would witness the grand opening of the Paris Summer Olympics, a gargantuan undertaking that has been in the works for years. An array of highly speculated moving parts hung in the balance, including headline-grabbing appearances from Lady Gaga (who helped open the festivities) and Celine Dion in a stunning comeback performance on the Eiffel Tower to wrap the kick-off celebration.

“Our first meeting about Paris took place the second Tokyo ended,” explains Hyland of the previous Summer Games, which wrapped in August 2021. “When it came to the Opening Ceremony itself, production planning started two years ago with a number of meetings with the creative team who presented this incredibly intricate plan.”

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At the helm was creative director Thomas Jolly, an accomplished French theater director who envisioned the banks of the Seine River as the focal point, with athletes from around the world sailing down its waters and a series of al fresco stages along the way, including on the bridges.

“But even back then, we understood that the presentation was secretive,” says Hyland. “Everyone who’s done an opening ceremony as a host nation wants there to be this element of surprise.”

Organizers held their plans so close that even Hyland and his NBC team in charge of broadcasting the spectacle in America had no inkling of specific plans until the relative last minute. “So although we’ve been planning this for a number of years, it wasn’t until a week or two up to the event that we started getting more details and breadcrumbs as to what the night was going to be like and who exactly was going to perform.”

For Hyland, a 20-time Sports Emmy winner who is also the coordinating producer for the popular Sunday Night Football broadcast, it was a delicate dance as rumors flew. “By the midpoint of the week, we did get to see two dress rehearsals without any performers, just stand-ins,” he shares. As a result, he planned his coverage around that. “Seeing the choreography and creative associated with the various performances, I was encouraged to see what it’d look like with whatever top performers Jolly enlisted.”

For a host country’s creative director, it’s an unenviable task. The veteran director and choreographer Kenny Ortega, who masterminded opening and closing ceremonies of the Atlanta Summer Games of 1996, as well as the Opening Ceremony of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games, is one of the few people who understands the undertaking.

“You have many creative goals including creating a ceremonial pageantry that would excitedly welcome the world, that would celebrate the magnificence of the games history, and to honor the world of athletes coming together in a peaceful competition,” Ortega tells Billboard. He adds of the “exciting and tense” workload: “I remember napping under my desk in our ceremony tent on the cool concrete floor in Atlanta.”

For his own broadcast in Paris, Hyland had a surprise of his own independent of the actual ceremony: enlisting Beyoncé to help introduce Team USA’s highly anticipated appearance on the Seine River during the Parade of Nations, a special video package that aired only in primetime during NBC’s coverage. (A live, uncut version of the festivities aired live on NBC on Friday afternoon in the United States, sans Beyoncé’s appearance.)

“It was a complete collaboration with NBC and her creative team to help bring that to life,” says Hyland of the video featuring the superstar in a call-and-response with Team USA stars including Simone Biles, Lebron James and Noah Lyles set to the superstar’s Cowboy Carter track “Ya Ya.”

“The first time I saw it, I literally wanted to run through a wall with red, white and blue,” jokes Hyland of the video that was directed by Beyoncé herself, styled by frequent collaborator Shiona Turini. Bill Kirstein, who previously co-directed the star in her videos for “Rocket” and “Blue,” served as director of photography.

“What a vision to behold, what a team to believe in, what a night to celebrate,” the star cooed into the camera to help introduce the team, which then cut to the excited group sailing majestically down the river. Said Hyland: “If that doesn’t get you excited for the Olympics, I don’t know what will.”

At 3:30 p.m. on Friday, NBC had their final production meeting. And at 7:30 p.m. Paris time, everyone was in their places for the ceremony, including commentators Kelly Clarkson (in the host booth with Peyton Manning and Mike Tirico) and Snoop Dogg (positioned on the ground).

“In terms of the performances, in my opinion the rain really added to a lot of them, even the raindrops on top of the piano during Gaga’s performance,” said Hyland of the star who belted out a version of “Mon Truc en Plume” in lush French, a song made famous by the cabaret star Zizi Jeanmaire. “Seeing her walk down the steps and perfectly hitting her mark despite the rain was a moment,” says Hyland. In fact, the only casualty from the wet weather, with the rain picking up as the night went on, was an elaborate host of drone cameras to capture overhead shots, all grounded due to the downpour.

The nearly four-hour ceremony represented a variety of genres from the host country, including French rapper Rim’K, the jazz vocalist Axelle Saint-Cirel (who sang the French National Anthem) and singer-songwriter Juliette Armanet covering John Lennon’s “Imagine.” One of France’s most popular stars, Aya Nakamura, performed her hits “Djadja” (a No. 1 French track) as well as “Pookie.” Of course there was some controversy, too.

But it was Celine Dion — in a comeback performance since announcing her diagnosis with Stiff Person Syndrome — who perhaps garnered the most attention. To close the ceremony, she delivered a heartfelt rendition of French icon Edith Piaf’s “Hymne à l’amour” while on the first level of a glistening Eiffel Tower. “We have a camera dedicated to the host’s position at all times, and I couldn’t help but watch Kelly during Celine’s performance,” Hyland says of Clarkson’s emotional reaction. “She was crying and it was a very authentic reaction to an incredibly moving performance. I got emotional just watching Kelly watch Celine. It was very powerful.”

By the time the ceremony wrapped by 11:30 p.m. Paris time, Hyland and his team breathed a sigh of relief. By Saturday, he was on a plane back to NBC Olympics headquarters in Stamford, Conn., to produce from afar. Then, it’s on to the Aug. 11 closing ceremony, and then plotting the 2028 Summer Olympics.

Get ready, Los Angeles.