A peep into Celine Dion’s dramatic comeback at Olympic opening ceremony

Canadian singer, Celine Dion, made a comeback from her self-imposed sabbatical following her announcement in December 2022 that she was taking time off from professional commitments to focus on her health after revealing her diagnosis.

The Queen of Power Ballads owing to her powerful and technically skilled vocals sang from the Eiffel Tower at the ongoing Paris Olympics opening ceremony on Friday, July 26.

Her performance was the final show-stopping act of a four-hour ceremony that began with around 7,000 athletes being ferried down the Seine River on an armada of boats. The performance closed the ceremony moments after French sporting legends Teddy Riner and Marie-Jose Perec lit the Olympic cauldron.

The My Heart Will Go On crooner performed her timeless classic: Edith Piaf’s L’Hymne à l’amour on a lower tier of the iconic Parisian landmark. The live performance marks the superstar entertainer’s first concert performance since revealing that she is living with stiff person syndrome, “a rare, progressive syndrome that affects the nervous system, specifically the brain and spinal cord.”

Dion had, in December 2022, announced that she was taking time off from professional commitments to focus on her health after revealing her diagnosis. At the time, she said the condition did not allow her “to sing the way I’m used to.”

Dion has not allowed her diagnosis to sideline her completely, however, as seen at the Grammy Awards earlier this year when she appeared on stage to present the final trophy of the evening.

In her documentary, the best-selling albums in history, Falling into You (1996) and Let’s Talk About Love (1997), said she was determined to make her return to performing. “If I can’t run, I’ll walk; if I can’t walk, I’ll crawl. I won’t stop, I won’t stop.”

The ceremony also featured a series of high-energy song-and-dance acts, including a cabaret medley from Lady Gaga, who opened the performances. She belted out the 1960s-era tune Mon Truc En Plumes, a performance from Mali-born French pop star, Aya Nakamura, and a tribute to Les Misérables.