The Milan Cortina Olympics Closing Ceremony will take place in a historic monument, and that history will be celebrated when it comes to the performances.
The 2½-hour ceremony will honor Italian music and dance, both classic and contemporary.
Headlining performers include internationally acclaimed ballet dancer Roberto Bolle along with popular Italian singer Achille Lauro and DJ Gaby Ponte. Additional performances were expected but had not yet been announced ahead of the event.
The ceremony will celebrate Italian lyric opera, which has been recognized by the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO as a global treasure, but also pay tribute to contemporary Italian classics. Both opera and dance are at home in the stone amphitheater, which each summer hosts a popular opera festival with lavish productions and the gala dance performance titled Roberto Bolle and Friends.
Organizers are expecting some 1,500 Olympians, a bit over half those who competed in the Games, to parade into the monument built in the first century for gladiator fights and exotic animal hunts.
They will enter en masse behind a pair of flag bearers from each of the 92 participating nations, including biathlete Lisa Vittozzi and speedskater Davide Ghiotto for host Italy, and hockey player Hilary Knight and ice dancer Evan Bates for the United States – all gold medal winners.
Some 12,000 spectators will join the athletes and officials for the closing ceremony. It will be much more intimate than the opening ceremony, which starred Mariah Carey and Andrea Bocelli inside Milan’s San Siro soccer stadium, attended by more than 60,000 people.
The show is set to kick off at 1:30 p.m. CT on Sunday, following the gold medal hockey match between the U.S. and Canada.
Where can you watch the Closing Ceremony?
The live coverage of the program will be available NBC, Peacock, NBC Chicago’s streaming channel and NBC Olympics platforms.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
