Celine Dion’s Performance Closes the Olympics Opening Ceremony
The stakes could not have been higher for Celine Dion’s first public performance since 2020. After canceling tour dates, in 2022 she announced that she was suffering from a rare neurological disorder known as stiff person syndrome, which causes muscle spasms, including constrictions of her vocal cords. “I Am: Celine Dion,” the documentary released this year, showed her struggling to sing at a recording session.
Her performance at the Olympics opening ceremony was a song from Edith Piaf, the petite, tangy-voiced, dramatic and quintessentially French chanson singer who was nicknamed “the Little Sparrow.” The song, “Hymne à l’amour,” envisions a love that outlasts the end of the world, and it’s the kind of soaring, swelling, long-breathed anthem that Dion used to belt to the rafters.
Like sports, singing has a demanding physicality of its own. Dion faced a live, real-time test with a worldwide audience.
And in a long, white glittering dress, she seized her moment. She relied on subtlety along with lung power. Perhaps her voice was a little scratchier, at times, than before her illness. But the drama of the moment was matched by the dynamics of her performance, rising to an unaccompanied peak before a triumphant final phrase. Yes, she nailed the landing.
#Celine #Dions #Performance #Closes #Olympics #Opening #Ceremony