Celine Dion : DIRECTOR MARVELS AT CELINE DION'S INNER STRENGTH, RESOLVE

She could have picked up where she left off, and most people would have been fine with that. Or at least understanding.

After all, Celine Dion shocked the world a little more than a year ago, when she announced a leave of absence from show business — including more than 40 scheduled dates at Caesars Palace — to devote her attention to husband-manager Rene Angelil's battle with throat cancer (and stress-related issues with her own voice).

Angelil's battle continues. In June, Dion told reporters the 73-year-old was hospitalized in Boston. But the singer and her show?

"As soon as I got here I felt it," director Ken Ehrlich said last week. "You certainly sense it in the hotel. You put your laminate on and walk around and people come up and talk to you. Especially the staff. There's an excitement ... 'Celine's back.' "

The Canadian superstar was set to reopen Thursday at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, unveiling a revised and updated showcase. Fans got the first hint the material itself would change when word broke in March that Dion had parted company with Claude "Mego" Lemay, the musical director who had worked with the 47-year-old singer since she was an 18-year-old unknown in Canada.

Ehrlich hasn't known her quite as long; only as long as most U.S. fans have been aware of her. His main gig is producing the annual Grammy Awards broadcast, and he staged her breakout "Beauty and the Beast" duet with Peabo Bryson on the broadcast in 1992.

The director said it was not his place to address the departure of Lemay and three other longtime band members, but he was happy to speak in spoiler-free terms about what awaits fans.

After all, it's not just Dion who returns.

"As we all know, Celine fans come back," Ehrlich says. The singer is one of the city's destination headliners; fans book vacations based on when she will be on the Strip. Repeat business "in a way kind of continues to signal her ability to change and shift with the times."

"If I had to put one line to what the differences might be, this show in a way, it's probably a little more up," Ehrlich adds. "A couple of things in the show were really down, personal moments, but they've been replaced by 'up' personal moments."

The family-photo montage set to Billy Joel's "Lullabye (Goodnight My Angel)" has been given an understandable rest, given the life drama playing out beyond the stage. Other songs outside Dion's catalog of hits — including the show-opening cover of Journey's "Open Arms" — also were considered fair game for swapping out.

But the new show still furthers the long-range vision of expanding the singer's appeal beyond her fading era of pop hits when she returned to Caesars Palace in 2011, to launch more than 200 shows. It was Ehrlich who coaxed her into scatting the Ella Fitzgerald classic "(If You Can't Sing it) You'll Have to Swing It (Mr. Paganini)" and tackling a medley of James Bond movie themes.

The veteran TV producer returned to the Colosseum for his second live diva showcase when he helmed Mariah Carey's "No. 1 to Infinity." But Carey set off in the polar opposite direction, rewarding her career fans by lining up her 18 No. 1 hits, in chronological order.

"They have inner strength, both of them, and they both have vulnerability," Ehrlich says of his two divas. "With Celine, I think she was just ready and she wanted to do different things. I think with Mariah, there was kind of this comfort factor with the hits. She had a vision."

(When he did suggest opening out the show, or at least rearranging the order of the hits, "(Carey) shook her finger at me and said, 'That's not what we're here for, Ken.' ")

Compared to many an overstuffed diva showcase — including Dion's first Las Vegas effort, "A New Day" — the most recent show kept the music and song choices as the focus of attention rather than the costume changes.

That may be in part because Ehrlich sees a musical side of her that's often lost in her celebrity.

"She loves riffing," he says. During rehearsals, "She'll go into a song that has nothing to do with the show. She hears a phrase in the song we're rehearsing and starts playing with that. In the past, those have turned into things that have been done in her shows.

"There's a great sense of spontaneity, and she probably as much as any artist that I've worked with wants to keep things fresh."

Dion was so happy to be a first-time mother when her Colosseum career began in 2003 that in her interviews, the actual show sounded like an afterthought; creative decisions seemed like they were left to Angelil and others.

Ehrlich says he doesn't get that impression now. "We know this is a tough time for her but it's remarkable, this woman — and I've seen it time after time — she has incredible resolve. In a way, she wants to be the team leader. I've seen it in the past and I see it now," he says.

"It's like somewhere down deep she knows that at the end of the day, people are looking at her, the rest of us working with her on the show. And her strength radiates. That's what I'm seeing in the last couple of days of watching her come in, and see the musicians for the first time in a while and start working with new people.

"She's really something. She's a very special person."

RJ

Celine Dion in Las Vegas August 27,2015

1 more day before the curtain rises again! / Plus qu'une seule journée avant le lever du rideau! 

1 day to go! / 1 jour avant le grand soir !

(Team Celine / Équipe Céline)

Celine Dion with Samantha Harris ET! August 24, 2015

Thank u @CelineDion for your candid interview! See my exclusive sit-down on @etnow tonight. #EntertainmentTonight - samanthaharristv

Behind-the-scenes of my exclusive interview with @CelineDion in #LasVegas. Airing tonight on @etnow #EntertainmentTonight ... Celine tells me about her own vocal health and how her husband is feeling today! - Samantha Harris

Celine Dion In Las Vegas August 27, 2015

Scott Price tells us more about the setlist and the rehearsals with Celine, notably about the song "The Show Must Go On" (Queen) reorchestrated in classical music style.

Lapresse

Celine Dion Interview for Entertainment Tonight USA August 23 ,2015

Celine Dion Reveals How Husband Rene Helped Her Return to the Las Vegas Stage

Celine Dion is back after a long Las Vegas hiatus!

After caring for her husband Rene Angélil, 73, who is battling throat cancer, the "My Heart Will Go On" singer is returning to The Colosseum stage at Caesar's Palace, because he wants her to.

"We don't know what the future holds," the 47-year-old admitted to ET on Sunday, adding that Rene told her to be "back, strong, [to] do it, still share your passion."

In December 2013, Rene underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his throat.

As for how her husband is doing now, she shared, "Rene today is feeling good because I am here, because I am talking, because I am alive," she said. "Because a few months back, he was worried- is he going to be there?"

She further spoke about how supportive they've been to each other.

"He's been there for me all my life, and I've been there for him all my life," she said.  "There's a part of me that never really left the stage. I wanted to be there but I needed to be someplace else which was much more important at that time. To be by his side. To be by my family."

And she's bringing the emotions to the stage when she returns on Thursday.

"There's going to be a lot of strength in that show and why? Because Rene and I, we are reunited like always, but love has transformed in an even stronger strength so that strength and that focus and even that happiness and that little joke and that fun time---you know what, thank you for allowing me not to be here for a year," she said. "Don't ask me where I was. Okay, I was not sun bathing at the beach."

Celine Dion : Interview for 3 Different Shows Sunday August 23,2015

Celine Dion for USA TODAY 

Celine was interviewed on 3 different TV shows from 3 different countries Sunday afternoon. Catch them all in the coming weeks on "Entertainment Tonight" in the USA, "Good Morning Britain" on the television network ITV, and "50 MN INSIDE" on the French channel TF1. - Team Celine

Celine Dion in Las Vegas August 27, 2015

3 days to go! / 3 jours avant le grand soir !

(Team Celine/ Équipe Céline)

Celine Dion new pics USA TODAY August 24, 2015

Celine Dion: Rene hopes to 'die in my arms'

LAS VEGAS — For Celine Dion, her year-long hiatus from a lucrative Las Vegas residency at Caesars Palace was all about making the right choices in life.

Now, after caring for her husband, René Angélil, 73, who continues to battle throat cancer, she's returning to the Strip for another extended run that starts Aug. 27. That, too, was the right choice, she says — because Angelil insisted his wife return to what she loves.

"I didn't want to be here at first, I don't need it. Don't get me wrong, I love singing for people, but I have priorities," Dion, 47, tells USA TODAY.

"But René really gave me a gift," she says. "All my grieving, it was during this last year. I think I've got this. For now. When it hits me, it's going to hit me. But my biggest job is to tell my husband, we're fine. I'll take care of our kids. You'll watch us from another spot."

During the course of an often-intense talk Sunday, Dion emotes grand statements and aching sentiments.

What comes through clearly is that her partner of many decades — Dion met Angélil when she was 12, and he later became her manager and, in 1994, her husband — is battling for his life. After a series of procedures in Boston hospitals, he is now living at the family's Las Vegas home. He has been fed intravenously for two years, Dion says

"We have asked (doctors) many times, how long does he have, three weeks, three months? René wants to know," she says. "But they say they don't know."

The couple's eldest son, René-Charles, 14, is fast becoming "the man of my life," although he often finds it difficult to see his father in such poor health, she says. In contrast, the couple's 4-year-old fraternal twins, Nelson and Eddy, "don't know their father in any other state, and I'll say 'Come on, let's go feed Dad,' and they'll come along with me."

The past months have been filled with many emotional conversations between Dion and the man she calls "the only boyfriend I've ever had." The singer says her default approach is to be strong, but sometimes Angélil "needs something more sensitive than that, more than just positivity. Sometimes he just wants me to enter into a different place with him."

Dion's voice gets soft. "I'll say, 'You're scared? I understand. Talk to me about it.' " She pauses. "And René says to me, 'I want to die in your arms.' OK, fine, I'll be there, you'll die in my arms."

Dion says she has dutifully taken notes during talks in which Angélil has spelled out the details of his funeral service.

"Don't forget, he's been the leader of the band all my life," she says, having masterminded her career to the tune of 220 million albums sold. "So it (hacks) him off to not see me all day and over here working. But he wants me to do this, do the show, do the interviews. But he freaks when I'm not home with him, too."

She isn't sure if Angélil will make an appearance at her show's debut Thursday, and if he can't, he'll watch a live feed back at the house.

"That first show, it will be fragile," she says, dabbing at her eyes. "There will be moments. Of emptiness, laughter, awkwardness, tearing up. But that's the point of coming back — otherwise, I just release an album."

For Dion, hitting the stage again is less about singing and more about showing her husband that she has his back.

"When you see someone who is fighting so hard, it has a big impact on you," she says. "You have two choices. You look at your husband who's very sick and you can't help, and it kills you. Or you look at your husband that's sick and you say, 'I got you. I got it. I'm here. It's going to be just fine.'

"You can have your shaking knees at the end, but when someone you love falls and needs help, it's not time to cry," she says. "Afterwards, sure. But not yet."

USA TODAY

Celine Dion in Vegas Magazine Fall Fashion September 2015

Everything You Need to Know About Celine Dion's Return to the Vegas Stage

After taking time off to care for her family, Vegas’s best loved diva is back.

It’s been more than a year since Celine Dion set foot on a Vegas stage, but the Canadian songstress is ready to return to the spotlight. “I am really excited about the new show,” Dion says. “I have a few new band members that I’m excited to be working with, and I’m adding some new songs while still keeping parts of the original show.”

The fve-time Grammy Award winner certainly knows her way around the Colosseum stage at Caesars Palace, where she has performed a whopping 927 times since opening the venue in 2003. But for Dion, one of the most popular performers of all time, having sold more than 200 million copies of her records around the world, the past year has been far from blissful. She put her residency on hiatus in August of last year so she could care for her husband, Rene Angelil, who is battling cancer. “We are taking it one day at a time,” she says. “He is my champ, and I admire his courage.”

Dion has been more than willing to sacrifce standing ovations to focus on her family, including her three children. “That was my priority,” she says. But it was at Angelil’s urging that she decided to return to the stage: “Rene really wanted me to come back. I want to do this for him and for my fans.” The new show has already been locked in for 40 performances, starting in August and running through next January. “I’m excited to return to the Colosseum. It’s my home away from home,” says the singer, who keeps a residence in town. “Playing in Vegas is different because it’s my home. I can go home after the show and sleep in my own bed.” Having her sons close by is an added perk. “We enjoy every moment with the boys, from bowling to pet shops, movies, museums, and parks. We’re always on the run!”

Dion’s shows generate so much attention and revenue for Vegas that she has been called a “onewoman stimulus package” for the city, although she’s a bit more modest about her impact. “If my performing brings the fans to Las Vegas and helps out, I am all for it,” she says. “Las Vegas opened its arms to me at the very beginning.” And there’s no doubt that this diva will go on. For tickets, call 866- 320-9763 or visit thecolosseum.com or axs.com.