Vegas Magazine - Niche Media - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.
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"Is there any better THAN VEGAS?" ere's an image you don't conjure up every day: Celine Dion in a pair of pajamas, covered with baby food. It's quite a contrast for the glamorous siren who storms the Colosseum stage at Caesars Palace in all manner of glittering gowns. And yet, loafing around her expansive desert home in PJs is precisely what makes the glob- ally successful Canadian singer happiest. "I wake up and help feed my 23-month-old twins, Eddy and Nelson, and soon I'm covered in yogurt, strawberries, cereal, you name it," Dion, 44, says with a laugh. Although she confesses to having a weakness for great fashion designers, "I don't think fashion would mean anything if I didn't have happiness in my life. The kids set the mood for me." Dion knows all about setting a mood. Her otherworldly voice, which has spurred the sale of more than 200 million albums in both English and her native French, has the power to conjure images with emotion, much as she did with "My Heart Will Go On," the theme track to James Cameron's blockbuster Titanic. The song, which monopolized radios around the world when the film debuted, is the grand finale in Dion's most recent Las Vegas show, Celine, which will return to the Colosseum next year after the fall release of her album Water and a Flame. Of course the songstress is idolized around the globe, but she is especially revered locally because of her enormous impact on the entertainment climate of the Strip. Her 717 performances of A New Day at the Colosseum between 2003 and 2007 entertained nearly 3 million people and grossed roughly $400 million. More importantly though, the lucrative run re-popularized the PLACE to take a chance —CELINE DION Las Vegas "residency" as a desirable way for top artists to essentially tour in place, letting their fans come to them. Elton John, Bette Midler, Rod Stewart, and Cher have followed in Dion's colossal wake. "Her first show was such a hit that it only closed because she wanted a break," says Gary Bongiovanni, president and editor-in-chief of Pollstar, a trade publication that follows the concert business. "Celine redefined what artists can do in Las Vegas, helping to make it arguably the busiest entertain- ment city in the world." Dion is pleased by her pioneering success, but she also remembers the ini- tial skepticism that greeted her plan a decade ago. "When we came here the first time, the vibes were negative—'Oh my God, the Titanic is coming and it's going to sink,'" she says in her clipped, fast-paced, slightly accented patter. "But a lot of people were willing to bet a lot of money on me and to take a chance. Is there any better place to take a chance than Vegas?" This time around, no one is betting against her. In March 2011, Dion started a three-year residency back at the 4,300-seat Colosseum, and tickets have been predictably hot. The only glitch came when her vocal chords were struck by a virus last February, causing her to cancel the spring performances. Simple rest—and a week with absolutely no talking—brought her voice back by April, and in typical fashion, Dion immediately started rehearsing, resumed her show, and knocked out a pair of albums in English and French, due this fall. "I hadn't recorded in five or six years," says Dion of Water and a Flame, which will feature six songs from her Colosseum show and six new pieces. "But you go into the studio and you try to capture the emotions of the songs, and make them go through the microphone to have an impact on the people." That sort of talk is classic Celine—direct, honest, and without embellish- ment. When asked what it is about her voice that seems to captivate a good portion of the globe, the singer interrupts. "It's not the voice, and I don't think it's the songs," she says. "I don't think it's the presence. But it could be the stability of my life. The craziest thing I've done is cut my hair blonde and short a couple of years ago. And people reached out to me, saying, 'Celine, you're one of the most stable things we have in our lives. Don't do that. We want you the way you are.'" She stops for a moment, but clearly isn't finished with the thought. "I'm an open book. When [husband and manager] René [Angélil] was sick [with throat cancer in 1999], I shared that. When I was having a hard time having kids [she underwent numerous in-vitro fertilization procedures, which pro- duced the twins as well as René-Charles, 11], I shared it. We're normal, we struggle to have what we want sometimes. We have ups and downs. Suddenly that singing has meaning." VEGASMAGAZINE.COM 101