Sign In
Create Account
0
LAS VEGAS — On the stage that French-Canadian power ballads built, Celine Dion rolls her body, drops her hips and shimmies in a gold sparkly mini-dress that looks like it was swiped from Beyonce’s closet.
This is Dion as Tina Turner, her robust voice stretching into a soulful cover of “River Deep, Mountain High” as a row of back-up singers groove behind her during a sound check in the near-empty Colosseum at Caesars Palace. Or at least this is as Tina Turner as the “Beauty and the Beast” crooner is going to get in her Las Vegas sequel.
Dion’s new show, which opened in mid-March on the Las Vegas Strip, is a stripped-down tribute to Old Hollywood comprised of a 31-person orchestra, a trio of back-up singers and an entourage of guitarists, drummers and a pianist, all clad in black tuxedos and cocktail dresses. Gone are the Cirque du Soleil-style dancers and theatrics that saw Dion harnessed to a cable and flown in the air during her previous, five-year stint at the Colosseum that ended in 2007.
A lot is riding on the encore show. Dion, who gave birth to twin boys nearly five months ago, is tending to an expanded family while trying to mirror or surpass her previous success in a city that has yet to pry itself free from the embrace of a brutal recession.
“From Michael Jackson to James Bond to ‘Mr. Paganini,’ it’s so different, and it’s so classy, and it’s fun,” Dion said of the show. “Different flavor. Different colors of music.”
Las Vegas executives herald Dion as the successor to legendary Sin City headliners like Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, while praying she’ll once more sell out nightly concerts despite the state’s record unemployment rates and a sluggish tourist market.
Caesars Palace president Gary Selesner said the three-year production is a gamble. Executives questioned reopening the show amid Nevada’s 13 percent unemployment, the highest in the nation. Caesars lost $831.1 million last year, or roughly $3.5 million more than its net income in 2009. Nearby, stretches of the Las Vegas Strip are replete with abandoned casino projects. When “A New Day” opened in Las Vegas in 2003, the unemployment rate in Nevada was 5.2 percent.
If anyone can speed up Las Vegas’ recovery, however, it is Dion, Selesner said. Ticket purchases have so far exceeded the pace of sales for “A New Day,” and executives expect the French-Canadian singer to drive convention business, room rentals, travel to Las Vegas and gambling.
“Certainly, Sinatra was one era. Elvis was another era. I like to think Celine is the next era,” Selesner said. “People still want to see the big stars get on the stage and see their hits, and Celine has got some big hits.”
Dion said she tries not to dwell on the tall expectations. “There are a lot of people talking to me about that. I am just a singer,” she said. “I want people to come and not feel disappointed. That’s my most important job.
“I personally don’t think I have anything to do with the economy.”
Under her new contract, Celine will perform 70 shows a year. The show will include the romantic opuses that made Dion an international star, including “Where Does My Heart Beat Now” and “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now.” It also has Dion singing scat in a parade of sequined gowns with thigh-high slits.
“You are going to be exposed to an expanded part of her probably that has always been there but maybe she couldn’t do in the last show,” said director Ken Ehrlich, who also produced this year’s Grammy Awards show.
Dion’s show includes a memorial to the belated Jackson, a longtime musical influence. She said he attended a performance of “A New Day,” then probed her about the experience.
“He was probably interested in coming here and performing here,” Dion said. “I really wanted to kind of sing a few of his songs to tell people how big of a loss that is for him to not be here any longer.”
Jackson wasn’t the only A-lister who mulled moving to Sin City after Dion’s opening night at Caesars. The show is credited for launching a wave of concert series that recalled Sinatra and Presley in Las Vegas. Since Dion’s Caesars stint, the Colosseum has hosted Elton John, Bette Midler, Cher and Jerry Seinfeld.
“More pressure, right?” Dion quipped when told of comparisons being drawn between her and Sinatra. “There is one Sinatra, and there never will be another one. The same thing with everyone else. I want to give the best of me and then I can never be disappointed and say I should have done better.”
Before she left to launch a world tour in 2008, “A New Day” grossed more than $400 million over five years.
Caesars spent $95 million to build the Colosseum for Dion in 2003, complete with a humidifier to protect her voice. It seats more than 4,000 people. The show opened to bad reviews, but was a commercial triumph.
Dion was originally expected to start her new show at Caesars in June 2010, but five failed in-vitro fertilization attempts delayed those plans. She delivered twin sons Nelson and Eddy in October, and began rehearsing for her March opening in January as she continued to breastfeed the babies and care for her 10-year-old son with the help of her mother, sister and a nanny.
In that time, Dion also squeezed in a performance at the 83rd Academy Awards last month.
“I didn’t think I would be ready after this pregnancy, but everything is smoother than I thought,” said Dion, who is living with her brood at Caesars while a nursery is added to her lakeside home outside Las Vegas.
Copyright 2011 madison.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Here's the link to see the whole article: http://host.madison....14189c4d61.html
Edited by ferjaacu, 08 May 2011 - 05:50 AM.
Back to top
Celine next to Sinatra and Elvis.. what more can she want..
