SpecialFeature |
| An eye-witness account |
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Special Feature |
| An eye-witness account |
By Oreste L. Aquilina, Pennant Hills, Sydney, Australia
The Opening Ceremony
What a great thrill it was to see the official Opening ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. I hope that you in Malta enjoyed it all.
In my case, that wasn’t all, because I had the honour, the great honour, to participate as a member (tenor one) of the mass choir, singing with the Sydney Philharmonia Mass Choir. After a number of rehearsals including two Dress Rehearsals we had the opportunity to sit and watch the whole ceremony.
It was great to see the athletes from over 100 countries marching in. The marching in of the athletes took about an hour and a half of the official opening. After all this Ceremony was to welcome the athletes from all over the world.. I felt proud and cheered as the Maltese athletes, some of whom I had met last Sunday, marched in with the white and red with the George Cross. I could hear a few cheers for the Maltese athletes. My new home Australia being the host country had the honour of marching last. That’s when the greatest cheers came. Australia has the largest contingent and after is the USA.
Everything was to be kept confidential and in fact even at the dress rehearsals there were certain items or segments that were not shown such as the piece de resistance of how the Cauldron was to be lit. Some of the segments will remain in my memory forever; those of Nature (the natural colours of the Australian flora were so evident), the Fire, the Dreamtime and others. Most, if not all had an Australian theme in them and were excellently choreographed. The huge white flag whereon the scenes of athletes were shown as it was passed down the crowd from the southern part of Stadium Australia which then became a white mantle over all the world’s athletes right to the end of the Stadium and a white dove shone on it. It was a really fantastic and memorable show.
As part of the choir a few seconds before the cauldron was lit by Cathie Freeman, a good part of the choir was sitting on the steps, which later formed the waterfall as the cauldron was being winched up to its base. My shoes and trousers got wet from the water bouncing off the first top step of the waterfall and jumping over the side retaining wall. As the cauldron went past us we could feel the heat from its warm and friendly flame. We could see the base of the cauldron lifting up to form the full torch. We had just finished singing Berlioz’s Te Deum which had its premier in 1855. We sang the Hymn second movement, ‘Tibi Omnes’, which is surely one of the finest pieces Berlioz ever wrote. Before, that we had sang another important segment of the Program by backing Julie Anthony in singing Australia’s National Anthem, Advance Australia Fair. This Berlioz particular piece has two choirs with eight different voices, an excellent selection for such a magnificent occasion. I’m sure that those who saw it on the TV screens would have enjoyed it immensely. As for me sitting up there 10 feet away from the cauldron it was one of the the greatest and memorable thrills of my life.
Last year I had the honour to sing in another Olympic Stadium, in Stockholm when I sang with the World Festival Choir backing Luciano Pavarotti. That stadium took about 22,000. This time it was something more grandiose and in a stadium with a crowd of over 110,000 and a TV coverage of some 3 billion viewers. I feel most honoured to have had the opportunity to sing with the Choir at the Opening Ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
Sydney alive and buzzing
After watching a number of times the exciting Opening Ceremony and particularly the segment of the Lighting of the Torch, and following the variety of sports offered on the commercial and pay TV channels, I thought I’ll take my wife and daughter for a stroll down town to see what’s going on around Darling Harbour and around Circular Quay.
Sydney is alive. The weather has been excellent. (It was 30 degrees, today) and there is so much going on. On the grassy areas and wherever there is a sizeable square, the streets have been closed off to traffic and giant Panasonic Television screens have been installed. Masses of people sit and watch events of the Olympic games or enjoy free outside entertainment added to the usual buskers who normally perform around Circular Quay, Tumbalong Park at Darling Harbour and Martin Place. There are other venues such as Belmore Park adjacent to Central Railway and The Rocks area with the same facilities. These areas, and others, have been rejuvenated to accommodate huge number of people who have picnics, mingle and find common purpose watching their Olympians. There is always some cheers emanating from the crowd notwithstanding from which country the winner of the particular event is. It has created new bonds. Groups of people from other countries dressed in their normal national dress go past with their faces painted and made up in their national flag colours and chanting their team support war cry.
At night, on the other side of the Harbour people are dining out ‘al fresco’ at some extravagant restaurant. Their view of the Opera House is impaired by the crowd waiting at vantage points to see the ‘white’ of the 70m high sails of the Opera House change to newly designed colourful illuminations, displays of themes of Reef, Water and Flames. The big cruise ships are all dressed up at the Quay.
Even the stage and the waterfall steps where we, the Choir singers, were sitting on cushions, before the Olympic flame arrived, is now replaced by seats adding some 5000 additional seats to the 110,000 Stadium. New turf or grass, perhaps synthetic, has now replaced the copper coloured carpet where the show took place and which had replaced the turf for the Opening Ceremony. At the forecourt of the Opera House they finished rolling up the huge blue carpet which earlier on Sunday morning and dismantling the structure which had been the sight of the change over and finishing line of the Triathlon.
At Circular Quay and other venues, they set up temporary/permanent food outlets prices are rather expensive as expected, $7 for a bottle of Crown Ale, a hike of about 100%, we don’t have the games every year do we? Well it’s good for business after some seven years of hard work to get everything in shape.
Within 24 hours of Thorpe’s (the Torpedo) winning gold, he was honoured by an issue of a postage stamp with him showing off his precious metal, on sale the next day. Everyone loves a winner. Australia is mad about sports and takes sports very seriously.
Oreste Aquilina
Malta in Sydney 2000 - Main Page
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