Winter Olympics: The snow may be melting high above Torino, but in the Stadio Olympico last night, the great Luciano Pavarotti surely sent a chill through the glowering Alps. Predictably, the fabled tenor was called upon to anoint the 20th Winter Olympics and his voice rang clean and beautiful through the crisp Piedmont night.
In grand tradition, the Torino Olympics opening ceremony was a brazen spectacle of pageantry and symbolism. Traffic in downtown Torino was near gridlock as the great and the good gathered to watch the nations of the world parade in winter wear and to record the lighting of the flame. Tickets were still to be had on the streets around the city last night, the asking price slashed from 850 to €300. The Italian aristocracy, perfumed and furred, were chauffeured to the entrances for Torino's night of nights.
As is custom, the hosts spared nothing in imagination and money when it came to impressing the vast Olympic family. In a polished and frequently psychedelic series of performances, the great touchstones of modern culture were invoked: Dante, Fellini and Village People's YMCA. Among the eight women asked to carry the torch in the stadium were Sophia Loren, the grand dame of Italian cinema, Chilean writer Isabel Allende and Waagan Maathi, the Kenyan Nobel peace prize winner. Peter Gabriel sang Lennon's Imagine.
A young girl stood on the ice and gave a perfect capella rendition of L'Inno di Mameli, the Italian anthem. A Ferrari was assembled on ice and then skidded around the smooth frozen floor, reviving happy memories of the days when Eddie Irvine drove for the tifosi.
Skaters in red stockings, flames shooting from their heads, sped around the ice. Renaissance characters in ballgowns glided with serene grace across the ice, courtesans and royals bowing at one another and all of them eating fruit. Then they were gone, and to melodic harp and haunting arias angels filled the skies. It was all quite mad.
But sense has never been of great concern when it comes to Olympics Opening Nights. Spectacle is everything, and although the Italian organisers revelled in the enchanting atmosphere here, their games are still fraught with concerns.
As ever, the spectre of drug abuse has cast a cloud, just as it did in Athens two summers ago. The first great casualty has been Zach Lund, the American long-expected to claim gold in the skeleton. Merely warned by the United States Doping Agency after testing positive for the masking agent finasteride, Lund was yesterday ejected from the games when CAS, the Court of Arbitration for Sport, held up an appeal by the World Anti-Doping Agency. The ban on Lund follows a decision by the International Skiing Federation to suspend eight athletes, including Germany's champion relay skater Evi Sachenbacher-
Stehle, for five days because of high haemoglobin levels. The German team are already appealing the ruling.
Italy has a tough stance on doping and pressed hard for athletes who tested positive to be treated as ordinary criminals, liable to trial and imprisonment.
It was there that International Olympic Committee president Jacque Rogge drew the line: Olympic family athletes might lose their medals but not their civil liberties. After a strenuous debate, Rogge - surprise, surprise - won out, noting it set a useful precedent for future games. Asked why the issue had not arisen when the games were granted to Torino in 1999, Rogge drily noted yesterday that Italy had not formulated its drug policy until 2000.
But the dark side of the Olympics were banished last night in the glare of a million camera flashes and a genuine surge of goodwill. And goodwill - the better side of human nature and the friendliness of the host nation - is what the Olympic movement does so well. Hence, the tiny delegation from Ethiopia, led by the dreadlocked Robe Tecklemarian, got as great a cheer as the mighty US.
Ireland's small team, splendid and cheerful, walked in between Iran and Iceland to the sound of Funky Town.
And when Rogge spoke of "a world in need of peace, tolerance and brotherhood", you could sense the crowd, flushed and enraptured, wanted to believe all those qualities were here in abundance.
They will be tested in the days to come.
Mild weather has forced officials to gild the slopes with man-made snow. The winding roads up to Sestriere are struggling with heavy traffic and ticket sales are reportedly slow.
The first gala event takes place tomorrow, when the men's downhill skiers will race for gold.
But the sport comes later. In the cold, lit stadium in the flaming heart of the latest Olympic city, Luciano stilled the athletes and stole the night.
