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The 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics officially get underway in Italy on Friday with an opening ceremony headlined by Mariah Carey and Andrea Bocelli, even if preliminary heats for curling, luge, snowboarding, alpine skiing and women's hockey have already begun.
Kicking off at 8 p.m. local time (11 a.m. PT on NBC and Peacock in the U.S.) on February 6, the inauguration will unfold mainly in Milan's 76,000-capacity San Siro stadium, which is often referred to as the La Scala of Football, in reference to the city's famed opera house and the venue's association with legendary soccer matches.
There will also be celebrations in the tournament's other main host city of Cortina d'Ampezzo some 250 miles northeast of Milan, with smaller events in the other hubs of Livigno and Bormio in the Valtellina valley; Tesero and Predazzo in the Fiemme Valley; and the Antholz-Anterselva valley on the Austrian border.
The Milan-Cortina kickoff follows in the wake of the sprawling opening ceremony for the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, which took place on the River Seine and was the tournament's first set outside of a stadium.
Conceived by French theater director Thomas Jolly, it was also one of the most controversial inaugurations in the Games' recent history after live vignettes — which included Marie-Antoinette holding her severed head and a party scene featuring celebrity drag queens, which some said was a parody of Leonardo Da Vinci's "The Last Supper" — provoked worldwide uproar and debate.
"Simplicity & Authenticity"
Unfolding under the banner of "Harmony," the two-hour Milan-Cortina 2026 opening ceremony looks set to be a tamer affair, with Italy placing the task of conceiving and overseeing the ceremony in the safe hands of Marco Balich and his Banijay-owned events company Balich Wonder Studio.
A master at producing large-scale shows, Balich has previously been involved in 15 Olympic ceremonies including Salt Lake City in 2002, Turin in 2006, Sochi in 2014, and Rio in 2016. His other credits include the FIFA World Cup 2022 ceremony in Qatar.
Talking to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera this past weekend, the elegant, Venice-born events veteran promised a show that celebrates the best of "Made in Italy" and puts the accent on "simplicity and authenticity."
In one break with tradition, there will be two cauldrons holding the Olympic flame, one at the Arco della Pace (Arch of Peace) in Milan and one at Cortina d'Ampezzo's main square, both of which will be lit during the opening ceremony.
Like Paris' ballooned structure, which rose up into the sky above the Tuileries gardens during the 2024 Summer Olympics, these cauldrons will also be dynamic and offer a similar spectacle, vibrating to the music of contemporary Italian composer Roberto Cacciapaglia on the hour.
Featuring more than 1,400 parts and measuring 4.5 meters in diameter when extended, Balich says the sculptures are a tribute to Leonardo da Vinci, who lived in Milan for 25 years under the patronage of Ludovico Sforza, creating masterpieces such as "The Last Supper."
"It's my tribute to the genius of Leonardo Da Vinci, who was Milanese by adoption," Balich told Corriere della Sera.
"There are also tributes to Bruno Munari and Giorgio Armani, who are also perfect examples of Made in Italy and of a thoroughly Ambrosian spirit that over time has transformed Milan into what is in all respects, a great Milan," he added, referring to the famed late design guru and fashion designer, whose lives and work were tied up with the city, as well as Milan's patron saint of Saint Ambrose.
Balich gave little away about the opening shows other than that they will gather 3,500 athletes and more than 1,300 performers, feature 182 original designs, more than 1,400 costumes and 1,500 pairs of shoes, with 110 make-up artists and 70 hair stylists working behind the scenes.
However, local media reported on Thursday that Carey had sung Domenico Modugno's popular 1950s classic 'Nel blu, dipinto di blu', which is better known under the title of 'Volare' at a dress rehearsal on Wednesday evening.
Expected Stars & Tom Cruise Hopes
Aside from Carey and Bocelli, other announced performers include Italian actor Pierfrancesco Favino (Padrenostro, The Traitor) and The White Lotus and The Paper star Sabrina Impacciatore; singer-songwriter Laura Pausini, who with co-writer Diane Warren won a Best Original Song Golden Globe in 2021 for "Io Sì" from The Life Ahead; opera star Cecilia Bartoli; and rapper Ghali.
International names include Chinese pianist Lang Lang, while Italian media is full of hopeful speculation that Tom Cruise will reprise his daredevil antics of the Paris 2024 Olympics during which he abseiled off the roof of the Stade de France and then roared off on a motorbike carrying the American flag as part of the handover to the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
Whether he makes a stage appearance or not, Cruise is among the many stars expected to make the trip to Northern Italy over the coming three weeks.
The Mission: Impossible star's presence was confirmed to local media by Emilio Pozzi, managing director of the Italian branch of On Location, which is the exclusive hospitality partner of the Olympics and Paralympics for the Milan-Cortina and L.A. games in an accord that kicked off with Paris 2024.
He said Cruise was attending as one of the ambassadors of the L.A. 2028 Games, and would be based mainly out of Cortina d'Ampezzo, which aside from its breathtaking beauty is also known as the backdrop for films such as James Bond classic For Your Eyes Only, Cliffhanger and The Pink Panther. Deadline has reached out to Cruise's publicist for confirmation.
LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman, who is facing growing scrutiny for his inclusion in the Epstein files, will also be making the trip to Italy for the Games.
Snoop Dogg is also in attendance for another tour of duty as a special correspondent for NBC's coverage. He has already posted footage of himself at the Milan's Ice Skating Arena.
ICE Tensions
Beyond the stars, there has also been focus on the attendance of U.S. Vice President JD Vance as head of the U.S. presidential delegation, with the support of second lady Usha Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, at the opening ceremony.
There has been local media chatter about the potential mood in the VIP section, amid unsubstantiated reports that French President Emmanuel Macron has yet to confirm his attendance and does not want to sit next to Vance in light of recent tensions over Greenland.
International dignitaries who have been confirmed as set to join Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and President Sergio Mattarella include United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, the UK's Princess Anne and German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
With just hours before the start of the Games, local outrage over the presence of officers from U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) as part of Vance's security detail continues to bubble, in the wake of the shooting deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good by ICE agents in Minneapolis in January.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said last week that only three ICE personnel would travel to Italy and that they would be based in a "situation room" inside the American consulate in Milan.
In a parliamentary briefing Tuesday, Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi reiterated reassurances that the ICE agents would be working behind the scenes to ensure the security of the U.S. presidential delegation and not operational on Italian soil.
Center-left Democratic Party MEP Sandro Ruotolo was among those who pushed back.
"The issue isn't whether ICE agents will patrol public squares or conduct intelligence gathering. The issue is who ICE is and what it represents. ICE is a political tool of the Trump administration, an apparatus accused in the United States of systematic violence, paramilitary operations, intimidation, and the killing of defenseless civilians like Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti. It is a body that acts as the president's ideological militia, not as a neutral security force," he said.
"Accepting its presence in Italy, in the context of the Olympics, is not a technical choice: it is a political choice. It legitimizes an open challenge that Trump is throwing to Europe and the democratic world."
Around a thousand people attended a peaceful anti-ICE protest in Milan on Saturday, blowing whistles in solidarity for the anti-ICE protesters in Minneapolis.
Three days later, it was reported that U.S. Olympic officials had changed the name of an athlete hospitality space from "Ice House" to "Winter House".
Saturday's protest was the first of a series of demonstrations due to take place in the city during the Olympics, not all of them focused on ICE. They include an anti-Olympics torchlight procession in the San Siro neighborhood, which is due to begin just two hours before Friday's ceremony, protesting the disruption caused by the Games to its diverse, working-class population.
These protests come amid heightened tensions in northern Italy following clashes in the neighboring city of Turin over the weekend between left-wing protesters and police following the eviction of the Askatasuna social center from premises it had been squatting for decades.
In other news, Tajani said on Wednesday that Italy had foiled an organized cyber-attack of "Russian origin" on the Winter Olympics, which targeted websites linked to the tournament as well as Italian embassies worldwide and hotels in the host town of Cortina.
It remains to be seen whether the theme of "harmony" will hold true across the Games.
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