The mastermind of the ambitious – and controversial – Paris Olympics opening ceremony has rejected criticism that his boundary-breaking show had gone too far, saying it had created a 'cloud of love and tolerance'.
Speaking on Sunday, theatre director Thomas Jolly notably denied that one of the most controversial scenes that featured a near-naked performer had been inspired by the Christian iconography of Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper.
Some Catholic groups and bishops condemned what they saw as "scenes of derision and mockery of Christianity" in Friday's parade choreographed by Jolly.
Criticism has focused on a scene involving dancers, drag queens and a DJ in poses that recalled depictions of the Last Supper, the final meal Jesus is said to have taken with his apostles.
"Clearly there was never an intention to show disrespect to any religious group," Paris 2024 spokeswoman Anne Descamps told reporters on Sunday.
"If people have taken any offence, we are of course really, really sorry," she added.
'Cloud of love'
42-year-old Jolly, denied taking inspiration from the Last Supper in his nearly four-hour production, which took place in driving rain along the River Seine – the first time a Summer Olympics has opened outside of the main athletics stadium.
The scene – intended to promote tolerance of different sexual and gender identities – also featured French singer and actor Philippe Katerine appearing on a silver serving dish, almost naked and painted blue.
He was meant to represent Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and pleasure, who was father of Sequana, the goddess of the River Seine.
"The idea was to do a big pagan party linked to the gods of Olympus," Jolly told the BFMTV channel.
"You'll never find in my work any desire to mock or denigrate anyone. I wanted a ceremony that brings people together, that reconciles, but also a ceremony that affirms our Republican values of liberty, equality and fraternity," he added.
'Great shame'
Wading into a tense political climate after snap legislative elections this month that left the country in political stalemate, the French extreme and far right have lambasted the show as a distortion of French values.
A spokesman for France's far-right National Rally party, Julien Odoul, called the ceremony "a ransacking of French culture".
In Moscow, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called it a "giant gay parade".
"If our work is used ... to again sow division and hatred ... it would be a great shame," said Jolly.
In one of the other striking moments of the ceremony, a woman holding a bloodied severed head and intended to be executed French queen Marie-Antoinette appeared in a window of the Conciergerie – a building where she was imprisoned after the 1789 French Revolution.
She was later guillotined along with her husband Louis XVI.
While praising elements of the ceremony, French hard-left figurehead Jean-Luc Melenchon criticised this part saying: "the death penalty and the execution of Marie Antoinette are from an age of punishments that we do not want to see again."
"Certainly, we were not glorifying this instrument of death which is the guillotine," Jolly responded.
Controversy notwithstanding, a poll by the survey group Harris – which was commissioned by Paris 2024 organisers – showed that 86 percent of respondents in France held positive views on the ceremony.
(with AFP)
