For Celine Dion, the best is yet to come

For Celine Dion, the best is yet to come as she readies Asian tour that includes two dates in Macau

Every experience you go through is an opportunity for growth, Canadian diva says of the death of her husband, the man who launched her career, as she basks in the success of a European tour and continues work on a new album

“Come closer,” she says, moving a chair a few inches towards the high-backed seat she is sitting in. “Is that better? Is that OK?”

The powerhouse singer is holding court in one of the catacomb of rooms beneath the The Colosseum at Las Vegas’ Caesars Palace, the 4,000-plus seat theatre where she has held a residency since 2003. (Last October, she celebrated her 1,000th show there.)

“Every experience you go through in life, whether it’s the birth of a new baby or the loss of the love of your life, it is an opportunity for growth,” she said. “Life imposes things on you. You don’t have a choice. You hope for the best but you have to deal with things as strongly as possible.”

Nearly two years on from Angelil’s death, Dion’s voice still cracks when she speaks of him; her smile disappears. In the first raw weeks and months of widowhood, she said she had to become “king of the jungle, to be the tiger in the family”, to convey to her boys, “that ‘mom’s here, I got you, we’re OK’.

“We expected it was going to happen. I’m not the first one [to lose a husband], and I won’t be the last.”

For a brief moment, she collects herself, apologises, and quietly resumes our conversation.

“My husband and I were partners all my life,” she said. “We were 50-50. But [when he died] he gave me the other 50. I became a whole. I will always live with my husband. He is a part of me. I look at my kids, and my husband is in the house, times three.”

In between performing and preparing for her upcoming tour, Dion is quietly working on her next musical project, an English-language album that she says “is exciting, and a little bit different”.

“Musically, the best is yet to come,” she said. “I’m not going to say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is the new me’. We’re not doing that. But we are exploring new sounds, new producers and writers and lyricists.”

Asked when the record might be finished, Celine Dion reverts to a thread that has run through the conversation. In mourning the loss of her husband, she talked about how she also found her own voice and learned to stand up for herself. She is better at drawing boundaries, and is more selective than ever about how she spends her time, and with whom.

Saying ‘yes’ all the time is not the right thing to do,” she said. “Saying ‘no’, in a positive way, might be. You have to choose your people. You have to be aware of the vibrations around you. Some people mean well, some don’t, and not everybody loves you. I’m trying to meditate, to find my own strength, to open a space in the inner centre of my body. And when I do that I feel like everything good is happening.”

But will her new album be finished? “It’s going to be ready when it’s ready,” she laughs. “Before, it had to be done by yesterday. But now, I’m like, ‘sorry, bye, I’m going to go meditate’. I’m just human after all.”

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