TOKYO — An Olympic opening ceremony with all the usual pomp and tradition played out Friday night in Tokyo in front of a nearly empty stadium.
Athletes paraded in, waving at empty seats. Costumed volunteers gyrated as if to draw excitement from a crowd that was not there. Oaths were taken, speeches were made, dances were danced, all of it for the entertainment of millions of television viewers, but only perhaps 10,000 human beings, most of them members of the news media, dignitaries and Olympic volunteers.
The off-kilter spectacle arrived a year later than originally scheduled, the result of a postponement of the Games, and as the culmination of a year and a half during which the world grappled with the coronavirus pandemic.