LAS VEGAS — Perched atop the performer
hierarchy in Las Vegas, where she holds court in the Caesars Palace
Colosseum, five-time Grammy winner Celine Dion could quite easily sit on
her laurels.
But the 45-year-old mother of three is using her influence on new
projects, working on a new album due out in October and co-producing the
show of a fellow French Canadian songstress setting up shop across the
street at Bally's.
"I'm not looking to make friends in the business because I want to do my
job, I want to have a good time and go home to my family," Dion said in
a recent interview with The Associated Press, sitting on stage next to a
protege with whom she casually chatted in French. "But Veronic — it's a
different scenario. I'm not quite sure why. I want her to be my friend.
I love her. I respect her very, very much."
Veronic DiCaire — a winsome blonde from Ontario with boundless energy
and just a wisp of an accent — previously opened for Dion during a 2008
tour stop in Montreal. In late June, she launched a two-month run of
"Veronic Voices," in which she impersonates 50 female artists ranging
from Whitney Houston to Carrie Underwood and Lady Gaga.
In a city where it's hard to stroll the sidewalk without running into
a Michael Jackson or Elvis impressionist, DiCaire's struggle will be
rising above the stigmatized title of impersonator — something Dion said
DiCaire can do because she "becomes" her characters.
"You've seen impersonators, you've seen men doing women, and women
doing men," Dion said. "Sometimes it's funny, and sometimes it's so
exaggerated. We've seen it all. With Veronic it's very, very different."
DiCaire has a devoted French-speaking following after living in France,
but her Vegas show is her breakout into the Anglophone world. Between
summoning the big voice of Amy Winehouse, mimicking the snappy stage
gestures of her patroness Dion, and overdoing a Taylor Swift twang, she
takes on a wide-eyed, country-girl-meets-big-city persona, at one point
offering the self-deprecating quip "pardon my French" when she stumbled
over her words.
f the show doesn't take off, it won't be for lack of a mentor. Dion
wrote the textbook on creating a Vegas brand, filling up her 4,000-seat
auditorium since she initially debuted there in 2003 and disproving
doubters who wrote Sin City off as a retirement community for fading
stars.
"Critics said, 'Oh, my God, the Titanic's going to sink again, she's
going to finish her career here,'" Dion recalled. "We took a chance. It
worked really well for us.
"I don't have to be here. The reason why I'm here is because I'm really enjoying being here," she added.
The Vegas appeal, Dion said, is skipping the exhausting tour schedule
and going home every night to her producer husband and three boys:
12-year-old Rene Charles and twin 2-year-olds Eddy and Nelson.
The youngest ones are named after heroes — Eddy for French lyricist
Eddy Marnay, whom Dion describes as her dad in show business, and Nelson
for Nelson Mandela the ailing, 94-year-old former president of South
Africa.
"We met with Mr. Mandela. It was a very amazing, privileged moment,"
she said of the man credited with helping end apartheid. "We both
thought it's a hero name ... Nelson Mandela was representing something
so positive and so grand."
Apart from duties as mom and mentor, Dion plans to release her first
English album in six years this fall. Challenged to keep things fresh
after three decades of recording, she said, it includes some unexpected
collaborations, including one with R&B artist Ne-Yo.
"The producers and the songwriters kind of proposed, again, amazing
songs to me, and I got excited again," she said. "The whole project was
extraordinary."
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