Which Celine Dion would turn up at her Paris comeback show? The powerhouse belter? The sensitive balladeer? The unpredictable ad-libber?<\/p>\n
But the real question in the back of many people\u2019s minds at Plenitude Arena on Saturday was whether she would turn up at all.<\/p>\n
As the minutes ticked by past the scheduled start time of 8 p.m., it was hard not to think about the wrenching vulnerability the singer exposed in the documentary \u201cI Am: Celine Dion,\u201d<\/a> in which she detailed the impact of her battle with a rare neurological condition known as stiff person syndrome. Sure, she had performed at the Paris Olympics<\/a> opening ceremony two years ago, but that was just one song. Saturday\u2019s would be her first full concert in six years, kicking off a string of 26 shows in a venue holding 35,000 people.<\/p>\n Then the lights went down at 8:48 p.m. Dion slowly walked onto the gigantic stage in a black gown and opened with \u201cOn Ne Change Pas\u201d (\u201cWe Do Not Change\u201d).<\/p>\n While fans in France and Quebec tend to know Dion\u2019s repertoire in both French and English, most American listeners are unaware of her French songs. She is bilingual and bicultural, as if she were two stars in one, with distinct careers that complement each other.<\/p>\n On Saturday night, it was obvious from which side the emotion was flowing. Dion did most of her stage banter in French, which she grew up speaking in Charlemagne, a small town near Montreal, and she sang in French for roughly two thirds of the set list.<\/p>\n Dion, 58, looked defiant yet fragile. Her familiar voice had a burnished patina that seemed to reveal a touch of nerves and a whole lot of roiling feelings. She lost her composure during that first number and had to briefly stop singing. \u201cI had promised myself not to cry,\u201d she told the audience at the end of the song. \u201cI don\u2019t keep my promises.\u201d<\/p>\n That Dion was making her return to evening-length live performance in Paris instead of Las Vegas, where she lives and has held two successful, lucrative yearslong residencies, may have partly been a logistical choice \u2014 Paris, after all, is a transportation hub easily accessible from around the world.<\/p>\n But France is a huge deal to Dion and was the first country to embrace her outside Canada. Conversely, she is a huge deal to France: A weekend front page of the Lib\u00e9ration newspaper asked whether she would \u201csave the 2027 budget\u201d and an article inside<\/a> cited a study estimating that her concert run could generate up to \u201c1 billion euros in economic benefits for France.\u201d<\/p>\n The show did include some of Dion\u2019s biggest English-language hits, like \u201cMy Heart Will Go On,\u201d \u201cBeauty and the Beast\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m Alive\u201d \u2014 the last one inserted into a medley that also included Donna Summer\u2019s \u201cI Feel Love\u201d and Eurythmics\u2019 \u201cSweet Dreams (Are Made of This).\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI was pleasantly surprised when she did \u2018All by Myself,\u2019\u201d said Pauline Martin, an audience member from the greater Paris area, who confessed she had spent half of the show crying. \u201cIt proved she hasn\u2019t lost her voice. It was a symbol, as if she was telling us \u2018I\u2019m back.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n But the biggest responses were reserved for the French-language material, including the wildly popular \u201cPour Que Tu m\u2019Aimes Encore\u201d (which audience members reprised in unison later on as they walked to the subway) and the rollicking duet \u201cJ\u2019Irai O\u00f9 Tu Iras,\u201d a classic at French weddings that Dion performed with Jordan L\u00e9vesque, a new backup singer.<\/p>\n In contrast to her English-language style, which is more extroverted and flamboyant, the French tunes draw from styles like chanson and the soft-pop genre known as vari\u00e9t\u00e9, with an emphasis on storytelling that pulls listeners close rather than stunning them into awe with vocal pyrotechnics.<\/p>\n Scott Price, Dion\u2019s musical director, said in an interview last week that it was when they started poking around the singer\u2019s French repertoire that Dion got back in the saddle last year.<\/p>\n \u201cThat really lit a spark in her, and a lot of the song selection came from that,\u201d Price said, explaining that singing in French and in English required different techniques. \u201cTo me, it\u2019s more where the voice emanates from in French. It\u2019s a little lower, deeper in the back of the throat, less up front,\u201d he said. \u201cThat seemed to be something that helped her out along her path.\u201d<\/p>\n After front-loading the set with slower warm-up numbers, Dion seemed to gain in confidence on Saturday, building up to one of her epic live staples (even if it was decidedly less over-the-top than usual, marking a return of sorts to her early-career, more conservative singing style).<\/p>\n A gospel choir came onstage for a segment, adding sonic majesty and oomph to tracks like \u201cLove Can Move Mountains.\u201d The set incorporated enormous concrete-looking slabs and stout columns that moved around to alternately expose and hide the band, and looked like something an avant-garde sculptor might have cooked up for a Brutalist version of \u201cDune.\u201d Interstitial videos of Dion traipsing across a sandy desert furthered that impression.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is kind of like this opera diva art to her, this kind of grande dame,\u201d said the show\u2019s creative director, Willo Perron<\/a>, who has worked on Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s Cowboy Carter tour and Rihanna\u2019s halftime extravaganza at Super Bowl LVII. \u201cAnd I wanted her to go all the way to that, go completely into that role.\u201d The opera reference was driven home in one of the evening\u2019s most jaw-dropping moments: a performance of \u201cEbben? Ne andr\u00f2 lontana<\/a>\u201d from Catalani\u2019s \u201cLa Wally,\u201d an aria forever associated with Maria Callas.<\/p>\n But the singer\u2019s trick is how she can balance outsize emotions with simplicity. \u201cAt the same time,\u201d Perron also said of Dion, \u201cthere is this endearing \u2014 and this is very much a French Canadian attribute \u2014 very down-home thing.\u201d<\/p>\n That latter side is a huge part of Dion\u2019s appeal, making her closer to Dolly Parton than to, say, Beyonc\u00e9 or Mariah Carey in terms of her relationship with her audience. Notably, both she and Parton grew up in families of modest means and despite their wealth (and, in Dion\u2019s case, love for experimental high-end couture), they project an earthy spontaneity that feels genuine rather than hatched by social media teams.<\/p>\n You could experience that relatability in the couple of weeks leading up to the first Paris show, when Dion would hang out with the fans waiting outside her hotel late at night. She would turn up well past midnight and chat for a while, looking overcome as her admirers serenaded her with her own songs, or dancing like everybody\u2019s favorite kooky relative<\/a>. You got the feeling that though she is light years away from her hardscrabble upbringing, she has retained a fundamental structural integrity.<\/p>\n \u201cShe has a relationship with the stage and her audience that is authentic,\u201d said Thomas Jolly, who directed the Olympics opening ceremony. \u201cYou might assume that artists are always performing, creating characters. But with Celine, it\u2019s as if there\u2019s only herself. And she herself is enough.\u201d<\/p>\n That self is capacious enough to juxtapose \u201cLa Wally\u201d and rambunctious boogie, \u201cTitanic\u201d and classic disco. And it is strong enough to give a message of endurance and hope to the singer\u2019s fans.<\/p>\n \u201cI had lost faith we\u2019d ever see her again,\u201d said Sophie Lesaffre, who had come to the show from Toulouse in southern France. Julien Grand, her friend from Compi\u00e8gne, knew better. \u201cI always knew she\u2019d be back,\u201d he said. \u201cI always knew that no matter what, Celine will be there.\u201d<\/p>\n