Some 30,000 people read it before they had finished screaming: Celine Dion did it. NANTERRE, France — She hit the high F, held it, then blew out a breath and turned to look back at the band — a quick, disbelieving glance toward her musical director.
She’s really back,‘” said Élodie Marchand, 42, a primary school teacher from Nantes. Dion, 58, had not played a full concert since March 8, 2020. She was diagnosed in 2022 with stiff person syndrome, a rare, progressive neurological disease that seized the throat she had been singing with since she was 5. On Saturday night, 25 songs in 2 hours and 15 minutes at the Plenitude Arena in Nanterre, west of Paris, was the first night of the engagement meant to prove she can work again. At the Olympic opening ceremony in July 2024, Dion sang from the Eiffel Tower — one song, one night — and the world called it a resurrection. Saturday she had to do it 25 times, then get up and do it again Wednesday.
What nobody knew was whether she could get through a whole show, and then get up and do it again two nights later. “When she hit that note, I grabbed my friend’s arm. I’d been holding my breath without realizing. Then I started crying. ‘She’s back. She canceled a world tour, then what was left of it, and went quiet. The last time France saw her sing, it lasted four minutes. She cried before she finished the first song.
It was “All By Myself,” the song the Quebec superstar’s voice has been measured against since 1996, saved for the encore of her first full concert in more than six years — her first since stiff person syndrome, a rare, progressive neurological disease that attacks the muscles, including those of the throat Few doubted she could still sing. “Touring can be very difficult even when you’re 100%,” she said in a statement in 2023, canceling the last of her dates. In a Dior gown and a Boucheron necklace, she pressed her hands together in prayer, then missed her cue in “On ne change pas,” on the line about the skinny little girl from Charlemagne, Quebec.
