Lady Gaga performs at Square Barye during the athletes’ parade on the River Seine during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 on July 26, 2024 in Paris, France.
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Maja Hitij/Getty Images
We’re live blogging the opening ceremony throughout the afternoon. Head to our latest updates here.
The rainy opening ceremony featuring athletes floating their way down the Seine through Paris. Still underway, here’s who we’ve seen so far:
Lady Gaga and pink pompoms
The first musical performance of the event is from American star Lady Gaga. She emerged theatrically from behind a heart-shaped plume of pink feathers, wearing a black leotard, long black gloves and a feathery headpiece.
She performed the iconic French song “Mon truc en plumes” by Zizi Jeanmaire as black-clad dancers shook pink pom poms around her. Lady Gaga briefly sat down at a piano to play a few bars, all at the foot of a golden staircase on the banks of the Seine.
Metal, Marie and Les Mis
Headless figures depicting the 18th century Queen Marie Antoinette perform along the Seine river embankment outside the Conciergerie, where the queen was held captive during the French revolution, during the Paris 2024 Olympics opening ceremony on July 26, 2024.
NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP via Getty Images
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NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP via Getty Images
Performers at the opening ceremony in Paris leaned into France’s epic and bloody history, mixing themes from the historical novel Les Misérables and heavy metal.
Dancers played out themes from the Victor Hugo novel-turned-musical, appearing to move through the Parisian sewers — where story protagonist Jean Valjean evaded police on the crime of theft.
A single shot of the word “Liberté” flashed across the screen, before a beheaded Marie Antoinette appeared and launched viewers to a heavy-metal performance back at the River Seine.
Aya Nakamura takes to a golden runway
TOPSHOT – Singer Aya Nakamura (C) and dancers perfom on the Pont des Arts footbridge during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Paris on July 26, 2024.
GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP via Getty Images
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GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP via Getty Images
Singer-songwriter Aya Nakamura, who immigrated from Mali to France as a child, performed a mashup of her songs Pookie and Djadja in a gold outfit on a runway on the Pont des Arts, which links the Institut de France to the Louvre.
Nakamura is France’s most popular singer at home and abroad, with the New York Times reporting in March that she had 25 top 10 singles in France.
The Institut de France and the Pont des Arts bridge as a pyrotechnics display takes place whilst the boats of Team Cyprus, Team Colombia and Team Comoros pass by along the River Seine before French-Malian singer Aya Nakamura performed during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 on July 26, 2024 in Paris, France.
Richard Heathcote/Getty Images/Getty Images Europe
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Richard Heathcote/Getty Images/Getty Images Europe
French rapper Rim’K shouts out Snoop Dogg
Algerian-French rapper Rim’K, wearing a red-and-black checkered jacket by Louis Vuitton, took to the stage to perform a song called “King.”
In the song, he notably name-checks rapper and Olympic enthusiast/torchbearer/commentator Snoop Dogg.
Afterwards the NBC hosts checked in with Snoop, who was rocking his Team USA blazer and a pair of shades, dancing with umbrella and microphone in hand.
“Like a drive-in movie, baby,” he said with a smile.
This reporting originally appeared as part of NPR’s live coverage of the 2024 Olympic Opening Ceremony in Paris.