Milan (AFP) – American R&B star Alicia Keys will make history by becoming the first artist to sing live at a Champions League final opening ceremony that promises unprecedented glitz and glamour on Saturday.
Record ten-time champions Real Madrid host city rivals Atletico Madrid at the Giuseppe Meazza stadium, commonly known as the San Siro, looking for an 11th victory in Europe’s premier club competition.
An estimated global audience of 180 million people spread over 220 countries will watch the Spanish league giants lock horns in the final for the second time in three years.
Yet fans around the world are set for an enticing, pre-game appetiser thanks to a leading Italian events company that has the formidable task this summer of producing no less than nine major international opening and closing ceremonies.
Along with Canadian company Circo de Bakuza, Rome-based Filmmaster Events will also organise the opening and closing ceremonies of Euro 2016 and the Rio Olympics and Paralympics this summer.
Unlike the opening or closing ceremonies of the Olympics, the Champions League final has never featured a live performance.
Keys is set to sing three of her “biggest hits”, according to the ceremony organisers, but is expected to treat fans to some of her new material when she is joined by 400 voluntary performers during a performance created by world famous events choreographer Wanda Rokicki.
AC Milan and Inter Milan share the San Siro stadium and despite their absence from the competition this season local fans will be given a chance to cheer.
They will be represented by retired club legends Franco Baresi and Javier Zanetti, who will carry the Champions League trophy out on to the centre of the pitch with Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli.
The nine-minute show will end with spectacular fireworks and with Bocelli — who recently sang for Leicester City and their Italian manager Claudio Ranieri upon their historic Premier League triumph — singing the Champions League anthem.
