They Threw an Italian Disco Ball

The elegant theme of these Winter Olympics, scripted on flags flapping on this city’s stateliest streets, is, “Passion Lives Here.”

So, apparently, do the Village People.

The mission of these Winter Olympics, stated in the hopeful oath of its athletes, is to strive for the sublime.

But, first stop, Funkytown.

In an opening ceremony disguised as a disco inferno, 80 countries and about 2,500 Olympians marched into a grand old stadium Friday to music one can buy on TV, if one acts fast, for a one-time-only offer of $14.95.

Di che cosa stavano pensando?

What were they thinking?

That nothing screams Albania like “We Are Family?”

That the Ethiopian delegation is “Hot Stuff?”

That when you think Andorra, you think K.C. and the Sunshine Band?

The low point occurred when Slovakia marched in to a song by the Village People.

Yeah, you guessed it. Some of the fans used their hands to spell out the refrain, the athletes suddenly checking not into the Olympic village, but into the YMCA.

What was supposed to be the highlight of every opening ceremony became the fifth inning of a minor league baseball game.

How, exactly, do the show’s organizers interpret the Olympic motto? “Faster! Higher! Pointer Sister?”

It wouldn’t have been so bad if Italy didn’t have such a glorious musical history.

Welcoming the athletes with Gloria Gaynor instead of Giuseppe Verdi was like, say, the Olympic Stadium concessions stands serving Pizza Hut.

This the home of opera, which is not over when the fat lady does the hustle.

Music from some of the Italian greats was played later, but the athletes’ march is the highlight of the ceremony, the reason for the ceremony, and it deserved at least as much Giacomo Puccini as Michael Jackson.

“We wanted to make a beautiful party,” said Marco Balich, the creative manager. “The music of the ‘70s and ‘80s is party music. We wanted to have a fun parade. We wanted to have fun.”

Certainly, for those who still like to do the bump, it was fun. And, yes, if you want to keep on trucking, this was your ride.

But the opening ceremony of the Olympics has always been the one element that has not surrendered to the trendiness that has overtaken the rest of sports.

The competitors are now paid, the sponsors are now in control, but nothing had been able to intrude on the moment when the world’s best athletes march together, proudly waving individual flags while gathering in a common group, sport suddenly bigger than all of them.

To which the Turin folks responded with two words: Bee Gees.

In all, it was the worst Italian idea since spaghetti and tripe.

It was the same logic, apparently, that led organizers to choose Susan Sarandon as one of the eight influential women to carry in the Olympic flag.

No offense, she’s a great actress, but if you’re picking someone from “Bull Durham” to represent the hope of mankind, Robert Wuhl is your man.

Officials said they spent five years working on the ceremony. One suspects that, given five more years, they would have had Donna Summer lighting the torch.

As for the rest of the ceremony, it sparkled in spots, but was mostly decorated in the same attitude that led to the Friday Night Fever.

Surrounded by apathetic locals and worldwide skepticism, the Turin folks tried too hard.

Before the ceremony, while trying to excite the crowd of more than 30,000, the warmup comedian sadly reverted to starting a chant.

“O-lym-pics! O-lym-pics!” he shouted.

Quiet fans looked at him in such apparent puzzlement, he might as well as have been chanting, “Dee-fense!”

“Twenty minutes until the Olympics,” intoned the public address announcer.

Silence.

“Ten minutes until the Olympics,” bellowed the announcer.

Silence.

When the ceremony finally began, it spoke of everything but Olympics.

The opening act included two distinctly non-Olympic sports -- skateboarding and roller skating. The first sign of ice or snow came later, in the form of giant white balloons attached to people’s heads, briefly turning the Winter Olympics into the alien Olympics.

At one point, acrobats helped piece together five giant pieces of steel to form the Olympic rings. Except the black ring was inexplicably replaced by a white ring, turning this into the Got-Dressed-in-the-Dark Olympics.

You know the night is gasping for breath when the only thing that looked even remotely coherent was fans doing the -- gasp! -- wave.

Michael Jackson aside, there were several cool moments during the athletes’ parade, with several awards deserved:

* Coolest outfits: Australia, as usual, this time for the tiny kangaroo dolls poking out of the backs of their necks.

* Worst outfits: Germany in lime and orange, a sort of schnitzel sherbet.

* Turin Angels of Anaheim outfits: A couple of Croatians marched in waving noise sticks.

Afterward the program finally focused on northern Italy’s royal history, but it was hard to concentrate while tapping your foot and thinking, “Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood.”

In the end, at last, it was downright chilling to hear Luciano Pavarotti turn the place into an opera house with a final aria.

Which roughly translated into, “You should be dancing. Yeah.”

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.