In 1988, Céline Dion represented Switzerland in the Eurovision Song Contest.
She won with the song “Ne Partez Pas sans moi”, which marked her breakthrough in Europe
Early life and Career
Céline Marie Claudette Dion was born on March 30, 1968, in Charlemagne, Canada, as the youngest of 14 children. At the age of 12, she came into contact with music producer and artist manager René Angéli, who was very impressed by her talent. He chose to mortgage his house to finance her career. In 1981 she released her first album: “La Voix du bon Dieu”. This made her a star in Quebec. During the following years, Dion released several albums of French chansons. Her first Pop album, “Incognito” was released in 1987.
After the Eurovision Fame
After winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 1988, she worked on her first English-language album; “Unison”, which was published in 1990. In addition to her growing fame in Europe, her recordlabel ambitioned to break through in the United States. And it worked!
The single “Where Does My Heart Beat Now” reached the top 5 of the US Billboard Hot 100 and the album achieved platinum status.
At the end of 1993 “The Colour Of My Love”, Dion’s third English Album was presented to the world. In North America, the first single “The Power of Love” (originally recorded by Jennifer Rush) was an unparalleled success. The single spent weeks at No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100. In Europe, the single “Think Twice” achieved great success. The album gave Dion her definitive breakthrough in almost every country in the world.
Still going French
Despite all the success of her English works; she remained a Canadian with French roots. Therefore she decided to make a temporary foray into the basics: In 1994, Jean-Jacques Goldman wrote 12 French songs for the singer that ended up on the album “D’Eux”, which came out in early ’95, containing the hit “Pour que tu m’aimes encore”. The album went on to become the best-selling French-language album of all time, with 9 million copies sold worldwide.
First Olympic appearance
Her participation in the opening ceremony of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta was watched by 3.5 billion people on TV. At the end of 1997 the next English-language album “Let’s Talk About Love” was released, which was recorded in London, Los Angeles and New York.
Artists such as Barbra Streisand, Luciano Pavarotti, Bee Gees, Carole King, George Martin and Diana King contributed to several songs. “Tell Him”, a duet by Dion and Streisand, was the first hit single from the record. “My Heart Will Go On”, another single and also the title song of the feature film Titanic, became an unprecedented success. It is Dion’s best-selling single ever, and reached number 1 all over the world in no time. The song also earned Dion numerous awards, such as an Academy Award and some Grammys. She sold 31 million copies of this album worldwide, and it is therefore Celine’s 2nd best-selling album of her career.
Break en come-back
In 1999, after years of performing, Dion felt it was time to take a break and focus more on family and friends, and she really wanted to be a mother. With a number of concerts, she temporarily ended her period of success. During that period, Dion’s husband René was diagnosed with cancer, from which he recovered.
On January 25, 2001, Dion gave birth to a son, René-Charles Dion-Angélil, in Florida.
In 2002 she returned to the spotlight and released several albums, both in French and English.
Las Vegas and worldtour
With the release of the album “A New Day Has Come” in 2002, it was announced that the singer would have her own show at Ceasars Palace in Las Vegas from 2003.
On February 14, 2008, Dion embarked on a world tour, performing outside of Las Vegas for the first time since 1999. The tour stretched from Canada to Japan to South Africa.
Céline came back to Caesar’s Palace in 2011 with the plan to do 70 shows a year. The premiere was on March 15, 2011.
In August 2014, Dion cancelled all her planned concerts and announced that she would stop singing immediately. This was because she wanted to take care of her sick husband.
René Angélil passed away on 16 January 2016.
On September 18, 2019, she started her world tour “Courage World Tour, It was her first world tour in over a decade. In December 2022, Dion announced, after years of speculation about her appearance and health, that she suffers from the rare neurological disorder “stiff-person syndrome”. This affects her singing voice. She therefore cancelled the continuation of her Courage World Tour, which she had previously interrupted due to the corona pandemic.
Another Olympic appearance
During the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, she sang “Hymne à l’amour” (Édith Piaf) from the Eiffel Tower. This performance is seen as her spectacularly acclaimed comeback after four years of not performing as a singer.
We are curious to see what more we can expect from her.
