Céline Dion is still an extraordinary powerhouse on stage and might be better than ever

Paris has fallen… to Céline-mania.

Karaoke sessions for 10,000 people organised by the city, mass slumber parties outside Céline’s hotel, Céline pop-up shops in smart department stores and normally chic Parisians rocking Céline t-shirts along with their smart navy blues on the way to work. It’s city-wide.

Even Oprah has shown up especially.

Expectations about her residency at Europe’s biggest indoor arena, Plenitude, which opened on Saturday, were higher than the Eiffel Tower.

The nine million people who registered for the ticket lottery had dared to dream that the career Céline Dion thought her rare neurological condition, stiff-person syndrome, had put an end to four years ago could be revived.

And dreams, it turns out, do come true.

So, as she steps out in front of 35,000 dressed-up fans – not a sweatpant in sight, just sparkles and heels – including plenty of Brits, who, like me have whizzed over on the Eurostar, there’s enough electricity in the room to light the monumental Willo Peron-designed set that looks like a cross between the Parthenon and Stonehenge.

She starts with the French classic On Ne Change Pas… and tears. Plenty of them. Relief, joy, gratitude – but the massive LED screens giving us close-ups do not lie, these are real (showing off alert: as someone who has interviewed her several times, I can confirm Céline does not do fake, sincerity is her thing).

‘I made a promise to come back…’ she tells us through the tears that she says she promised herself she wouldn’t shed. ‘So, here I am, singing for you, singing for me…’

From here on in, it’s a non-stop, ever-changing, two-hour-plus ride full of drama and energy, air-grabbing, chest-thumping, fist-pumping and air-guitaring.

The set rotates to become steps, a cave… a cliff emerges from the stage… The fashion gets bigger and bigger: from a black column dress with a diamond the size of a child’s head to a jewel-encrusted suit giving matador energy, to a sparkly shift slashed to the hip to body armour sculpted onto her muscular frame (the girl’s in shape!), the hair pulled back to accentuate that profile. Even the four backing singers morph into a full-blown choir dressed as monks.

With Céline known in France for her French songs – her 1995 album D’eux is the biggest selling French-language album of all time – much of the concert, and the patter, is in French, but the hits we know and love are here.

The Titanic theme, My Heart Will Go On, which tipped her into the big time, is dispensed with fairly early before she takes a tour of disco (Donna Summer’s I Feel Love), post-punk (Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams) and opera (an aria performed, note perfect, on top of that cliff that popped-up). And of course, The Power of Love, Beauty and the Beast, I’m Alive, It’s All Coming Back to Me Now, That’s the Way It Is… And the French songs, like Pour Que Tu M’Aimes Encore, which every French person in the arena knows and shouts every single word to, and a new song, Dansons.

The screen, apart from the close-ups of that big-time emoting, shows films of Céline in a Dune-esque desert and then Céline doing contemporary dance – she does have the poise and angularity of a ballerina after all, even at the age of 58 – during the moments she disappears to slip into something even less comfortable.

Bearing in mind this is her first show since 2020 (we won’t count the spectacular performance on the Eiffel Tower in the Paris Olympics opening ceremony), the power, the precision and the energy are extraordinary.

And as the evening comes to an end, there’s a winding down where the singers and musicians leave the stage one by one until it’s only Céline, who gives heartfelt thanks to everyone involved in putting the show together and leaves us with a final ‘Je vous aime’ – ‘I love you’ – and the deepest of curtsies.

If you saw the documentary I Am: Céline Dion and thought you’d seen the end of her, the good news is that not only is she back, but she’s also bigger and better – and more emotional! – than you ever imagined.

The current residency lasts until October 17 with more dates from May 8, 2027. Ticket information at celinedion.com. Eurostar to Paris prices start at £39 one way, eurostar.com.