As the world watched, Celine Dion audaciously performed Hymne à l’amour on the Eiffel Tower at the Paris Olympics opening ceremony. She had not sung in public since 2020. Standing on the tower’s platform 57 metres above the ground, with a microphone in one hand and an audience in the palm of the other, the sequin-gowned Quebec superstar rose to the occasion.
For the landmark performance, Dion earns the title of The Globe and Mail’s arts person of the year.
The documentary, “I Am: Celine Dion”, takes viewers on a candid journey with the singer while she struggles with stiff-person syndrome.Amazon MGM Studios/The Canadian Press
A documentary released a month earlier had suggested a comeback was on its way. In Irene Taylor’s emotionally raw and defiant I Am: Celine Dion, the singer candidly talked about her struggles with stiff-person syndrome, a rare neurological disorder characterized by progressive muscle rigidity that adversely affects her vocal chords among other things.
She is shown on camera enduring a frightening apparent seizure – her body in “crisis,” according to sports medicine therapist Terrill Lobo. He tells her that “this is not the end of your journey, we all know that.”
Later, she sings along to a favourite song of hers, Wyn Starks’s Who I Am, playing on her mobile phone. It’s a power ballad in the swaggering, defiant key of My Way, with a chorus built for a diva of the Dion kind:
I gotta be me
Gotta be I
Gotta be who I know I am inside
Can finally breathe, taking it in, look at me flying
It’s always been there, it just took me a minute to find it
If I were to be anybody else, I’d just be hiding
Who I am, who I am
In her review of Dion’s towering Olympic appearance, the Guardian’s Adrian Horton described the performance of the Édith Piaf classic as “undaunted.” It appeared to be just that, but was it? No one would blame Dion for being a little unnerved.
She was not, according to the pianist who accompanied her on the Eiffel Tower.
“We made sure she would be up for the task and that she was happy with the arrangement,” Scott Price told The Globe. “I guess you could compare it to 100-metre-dash strength at the Olympics – it was all built up.”
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Price first played with Dion at another momentous performance, her 2008 concert on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City in front of 250,000 spectators, in celebration of the city’s 400th anniversary. He became her musical director in 2015, on the road and for her Las Vegas residencies.
For her Olympics performance they first rehearsed in Las Vegas, and again in Paris on the day before the opening ceremony. “We were very, very prepared,” Price said. “And she already knew the song inside and out.”
Abbie Parr/Associated Press; Olympic Broadcasting Services/Associated Press/The Canadian Press
Hymne à l’amour (Hymn to Love) was originally performed by the French singer Piaf, who wrote the lyrics in 1949 about the love of her life, world champion boxer Marcel Cerdan, who was later killed in a plane crash.
Dion movingly performed it at the American Music Awards in 2015 in Los Angeles, in honour of the 130 people who died in Paris terrorist attacks 10 days earlier.
Shortly after the singer’s Olympian effort, an essay in The Globe by Elio Iannacci was titled “Celine Dion and the art of the comeback.” Whether it is an art or something straight out of the PR handbook, Dion’s year-long campaign has been a thing of beauty.
Dion delighted fans by presenting the award for album of the year at the Grammy Awards this year.Chris Pizzello/AP-Invision/The Canadian Press
On Feb. 4, she made a surprise appearance at the Grammy Awards, presenting Taylor Swift with the award for album of the year. After the release of the documentary and the unannounced Olympics performance in the summer, Dion unexpectedly voiced the opening for the Sunday Night Football matchup between the Dallas Cowboys and the Pittsburgh Steelers in October.
That same month, she released the recording of her performance of Hymne à l’amour, and later was a presenter at the swish Spirit of Life Gala in Los Angeles. On Oct. 24, the Dion jukebox musical Titanique made its Canadian premiere at the Segal Centre for Performing Arts in Montreal. The off-Broadway hit currently occupies Toronto’s CAA Theatre.
Where the Dionaissance leads remains to be seen. The 56-year-old is an artist devoted to her fans and to the stage. A one-off on the Eiffel is one thing; a tour or lengthy Las Vegas residency is quite another.
In 1981, as the legend goes, Dion’s manager (and future husband) René Angélil mortgaged his home to fund his young client’s first record. (He died in 2016.) In 2024, would Dion’s pianist bet the house on her comeback?
“I wouldn’t be surprised if she started up another residency,” Price said. “I know she wants to, but I know that she wants to make sure that all the conditions are right. Decisions will depend on how she feels.”
