As we’ve come to expect from opening ceremonies, the performances juggled high art (poetry! opera!) and meme-worthy camp. After an opening video that could’ve been an Italian tourism ad (mountains, cafes, fashionistas), dancers in white and silver togas took the circular stage at San Siro for an homage to Italian sculptor Antonio Canova’s Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss, which, of course, takes as its subject the Roman mythology that is also part of Italy’s heritage. The paparazzi scene gave way to a ridiculous—but fun!—vignette involving cartoonishly oversized masks of the Italian composers Rossini, Puccini, and Verdi. Giant paint tubes swung from the ceiling, squeezing out bright streams of fabric. In a particularly Felliniesque touch, dozens of brightly colored dancers appeared in costume as various items of Italiana: Colosseums, espresso pots, bakers carrying tiered cakes. Marquee performer Mariah Carey, perhaps our greatest human fusion of art and camp, soon appeared, swaddled in white feathers, to perform the Italian-language standard “Volare” (and shoehorn in a passage of her own song “Nothing Is Impossible,” naturally). Giorgio Armani, the iconic Milanese designer who died last fall, would likely have appreciated a stylishly minimalistic tribute that had three lines of models march through the arena dressed in monochromatic Armani suits in the colors of the Italian flag.