Céline Dion experienced the ultimate heartbreak in 2016 after the loss of husband and manager René Angélil, who passed away in January after a long battle with cancer. After taking a short break from her eponymous residency at the Colosseum she was back onstage Feb. 23, starting out with a video tribute to Angélil and her rendition of “With One More Look at You”/”Watch Closely Now.” The medley, first sang by Barbra Streisand in 1976’s A Star Is Born,
was a fitting tribute, as Angélil made Dion a star that would ascend to heights in the pop music firmament that few aside from Streisand had previously reached. Dion’s return to the stage and the chance to heal in the comfort of her fans seemed to re-energize her .
was a fitting tribute, as Angélil made Dion a star that would ascend to heights in the pop music firmament that few aside from Streisand had previously reached. Dion’s return to the stage and the chance to heal in the comfort of her fans seemed to re-energize her .
She went on to experience a triumphant year that culminated in the 1,000th performance of Céline on Oct. 9. In May, she released a cover of Queen’s “The Show Must Go On,” which would become the finale for her Colosseum shows, and was presented with the ICON Award at the 2016 Billboard Music Awards by her son René Charles. Dion spent the summer on tour, selling out nine shows in Paris before heading to Quebec and more sold-out concerts. The ingénue from a small suburb of Montreal was whetting appetites for Encore un soir, her first French-language album in four years.
Encore un soir was released Aug. 26 and debuted at No. 1 in France and Canada. By Sept. 20, she was back at Caesars with her 1,000th milestone looming. That Oct. 9 show opened with a video highlighting Dion’s more than 14 years of being arguably the top headliner on the Strip and closed with a shower of bronze and silver confetti and balloons. It’s a far different production now than when Dion debuted A New Day… in 2002 under the direction of former Cirque du Soleil visionary Franco Dragone. Céline takes a more personal than fantastical approach, with Grammy Awards director Ken Ehrlich—no stranger to directing Dion for television—at the helm and a full orchestra playing with the band.
The current set list spans her career and has all the hits, but it’s evolved quite a bit since she opened the initial 2011 performances of Céline with a video intro of “I Drove All Night” followed by a cover of Journey’s “Open Arms.” What exactly Dion has planned for the final week of winter shows remains to be seen, but her fall shows opened with “I Surrender” and included covers of “Beauty and the Beast,” “All By Myself” and a “Kiss/Purple Rain” medley. Her final 2016 performances closed with an encore of “My Heart Will Go On” followed by the Queen cover, a one-two punch of determination and resilience in the face of tragic circumstances.
By the looks of things, the show will go on as long as Dion wants it to. After Céline’s 1,000th show, 24 more dates from April 4 to June 3 were added to this year’s slate. In a career in which she’s sold 250 million albums and counting, earned five Grammys and two Academy Awards, won dozens of awards in Canada and was recognized by France with the country’s highest award, the Legion d’honneur, Dion shows no sign of slowing down.
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