PARIS.- Paris police are investigating death threats and online harassment targeting Thomas Jolly, the Olympic opening ceremony’s artistic director, the Paris prosecutor’s office said Friday.

While the opening ceremony was broadly praised in France, a banquet scene featuring drag queens fueled intense controversy in conservative circles after some people interpreted it as a parody of “The Last Supper,” Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of a biblical scene.

Jolly had filed a complaint earlier this week after he received a barrage of insults and threats online, some based on his “his sexual orientation,” the prosecutor’s office said. Jolly was also targeted by insults based on a false assumption that he was from Israel, the office said.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said it had opened a hate speech investigation.

The mayor of Paris, Anne Higaldo, released a statement Friday supporting Jolly. “Paris was proud and honored to be able to count on his talent to magnify our city and tell the world what we are all about,” she said. “Yesterday, today and tomorrow, Paris will always stand by artists, creation and freedom.”

A poll conducted the day following the ceremony revealed that 86% of French people thought it was a success.

Yet as a backlash against the banquet scene grew on social media — fanned by posts from right-wing politicians in France and abroad — opening ceremony organizers and participants moved to quell the controversy.

Jolly said in a televised interview on BFM-TV that the scene was inspired by Greek mythology, and that “The Last Supper” was never an inspiration. “You’ll never find in me a desire to mock or denigrate anyone,” he said. “I wanted to create a ceremony that would repair and reconcile,” he added.

Other artists involved in the opening ceremony also said that they had been targeted in online cyberbullying campaigns. On Monday, Barbara Butch, a DJ who appeared in the same scene, filed a police complaint for cyberbullying. “She has been threatened with death, torture and rape, and has also been the target of numerous antisemitic, homophobic, sexist and fat-phobic insults,” her lawyer, Audrey Msellati, said in a statement.

“All my life, I’ve refused to be a victim: I won’t shut up. I’m not afraid of those who hide behind a screen,” the DJ said in a social media post. The Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation Tuesday.

Nicky Doll, a drag queen and host on “Drag Race France” who performed in the show, filed a complaint for defamation Friday, according to his lawyer.

Jolly declined an interview request through his lawyer, Patricia Moyersoen,

“He is now focusing on the Olympic closing ceremony,” Moyersoen said. “He has moved on and he needs all the time he has.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.