Tormented by adversity, Céline Dion returns to singing and makes an almost greater impression than before

zI have always been a somewhat fragile woman, from whom a voice like a ship’s horn could miraculously emerge. As far as these two extremes are concerned, Celine Dion’s performance last night at the end of the Olympic opening ceremony was as usual.

But Dion made an almost greater impression on her platform above the arches of the Eiffel Tower, in the pouring rain, than in her glory years. Many television viewers, and the Olympic athletes gathered beneath her, will have barely kept their eyes dry during Dion’s rendition of the passionate Hymn to lovea love song for love. Dion sang the anthem, written by Édith Piaf, chillingly high-pitched, pure and theatrical, with Paris at her feet.

And in the decisive arm gestures and moving performance, everyone could see that the singer herself drew strength from the lyrics: ‘We have an eternity ahead of us, in the vast blue. In the sky, without worries.’ Millions of viewers saw the tears well up in one of the greatest pop vocalists of our time.

Celine Dion came from a long way back and that made her surprise appearance special. The Canadian (56), born in the Canadian town of Charlemagne, in French-speaking Quebec, walked seemingly effortlessly through decades of pop history from the 1980s onwards, as one of the most powerful singing voices on the music and entertainment circuit, already pulverizing three octaves of vocal range when singing.

With her incredible volume and range, she sang on entire albums and in stadiums, as the “queen of the power ballad.” Not everyone liked her theatrical and sometimes scorching voice, but Dion built an impressive career with that incomparable voice.

Long before the Taylor Swift era, Dion was known as the most successful and highest-earning female artist. She sold an estimated 250 million albums and won five Grammy Awards and an Oscar for her songwriting. My heart Will Go Onof the movie Titanic (1997).

Stiff Person Syndrome

But seventeen years ago, only now do we know, something went wrong with Dion’s voice. In the very revealing film recently released I am: Celine Dion She explains how a mysterious illness made her life and especially her performance miserable. It turned out that the singer suffered from stiff-person syndrome, a rare neurological disease that can cause the body’s muscles to cramp and lead to severe spasms.

Dion, she explains while crying in the film, suffered from cramps and spasms in her chest, which made her voice increasingly crack. When she tried to reach her former volume, her voice cracked. For years, she made excuses on stage to mask her shortcomings. She asked the audience to sing along, an old artist trick. Or she ran off stage to supposedly change into something else, after which she never returned.

She was ashamed of all her lies, she admits in the film, and apparently wants to confess them. But she did not want to disappoint her audience. What’s more, she herself could not bear the thought that she might never be able to sing again. Because she was addicted to the embrace of her fans.

‘I was the best’

In several harrowing scenes, we see Dion, who had not sung for two years during filming, walking around her house in goat wool socks, looking after guinea pigs and saying she misses singing. “I think I used to be very good,” she says, tears again rolling down her cheeks. “I sang the highest notes. I was the best.”

The film is a painful portrait of a struggling artist who has to say goodbye to her art but simply can’t. We see her taking too much Valium, in an attempt to relax her muscles. Of course, that doesn’t end well either.

At the end of the documentary, in which we even witness a terrible spastic attack, Dion tries to sing again in a studio. But her voice is different; much less powerful and crunchy. “Maybe I should become a rock singer,” she tries to muster the courage.

But in the final scene we see the singer again, staring boldly into the camera. “I’m not going to stop,” he says. And apparently Dion has kept that promise. Her Paris performance was her first in four years, after cancelled tours and a canceled Las Vegas residency. And from the sound of her performance, she has either managed to crack a code somewhere, or managed to train another voice that isn’t racked by cramps and spasms.

It is not known whether Dion will perform or record more. After her performance on Friday night, she posted a message on Or was it a bit about Celine Dion too?

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