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From the Olympics Toword Tomorrow
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World-spanning chorus wows Olympic audience
The globe-spanning choir, brought together by satellite linkup for the opening gala of the Nagano Olympic Winter Games, sang in synch and in harmony in a performance that drew kudos from onlookers.
The weather gods, who organizers had feared might wreck the delicate high-tech show, observed the ''Olympic Truce'' and cleared the skies for the unconventional rendering of Beethoven's ''Ode to Joy.''
Featured in live footage on three huge TV screens in the Minami Nagano Sports Park stadium, five choruses in Beijing, Berlin, Cape Town, New York and Sydney sang in seamless harmony along with their colleagues in Nagano.
As envisaged by Japanese maestro Seiji Ozawa, who conducted the piece via satellite image from a concert hall six kilometers away from the stadium, thousands of spectators sang along with the global choir in the grand finale of the two-hour opening gala.
A smiling Ozawa told reporters backstage after the spectacle that he thought the performance was ''wonderful.''
''It was very exciting and I'm very happy,'' he said.
Bass-baritone Kevin Short, one of the eight soloists featured in the piece, echoed that view. ''It was a lifetime experience, easily the largest audience I will ever perform for in my life,'' he said.
''I was overwhelmed,'' was Russia-born bass Denis Sedov's comment.
Many spectators marveled at the technical wizardry that made it possible to synchronize the choir, which comprised 1,000 singers from five continents, a world first.
It was made possible through a specially developed device which delays all satellite images to match them with those coming from the location with the greatest time lag.
''Connecting five continents, that was quite an ambitious undertaking,'' said Anne Waring, a Canadian television worker, adding the successful outcome did ''fit my image of Japan.''
Harue Takazawa, a visitor from Kamakura, southwest of Tokyo, who attended the opening ceremony, said she sang with the world choir.
''It was amazing that despite the time difference the choruses were completely in synch with each other.''
John King, an American visitor from Florida, said he did not expect anything but a perfectly timed satellite transmission. ''The chorus was one of the best parts, it gave me goose-bumps,'' he said.
''To coordinate the choirs, only the Japanese can do it, I thought,'' King's wife Karen said.
Others, however, were less impressed.
Some say the screens were too small to get across the significance of a globally united choir and that the 20-minute choir finale, which featured ballet dancers, was too long.
''It was really well done with all the continents involved, but it didn't really get the effect because there was so much going on in the stadium,'' said New Zealander Grant Wardle, who lives in Nagoya.
Odette Roberts, a visitor from Australia, said she felt the selection of a more modern, jazzier piece would have fit the occasion better.
The T-shirt-clad singers in Sydney, host city of the 2000 Olympic Summer Games, surprised the 50,000 spectators and millions of television viewers around the world by forming the five Olympic rings in front of the city's famous waterfront Opera House. (Kyodo News)
No part of the article, photographs, or illustrations presented here may be printed or used without permission.
Copyright 1998 The Shinano Mainichi Shimbun