NANTERRE, France: She hit the high F, held it, then blew out a breath and turned to look back at the band \u2014 a quick, disbelieving glance toward her musical director. Some 30,000 people read it before they had finished screaming: Celine Dion did it.<\/p>\n
It was \u201cAll By Myself,\u201d the song the Quebec superstar\u2019s voice has been measured against since 1996, saved for the encore of her first full concert in more than six years \u2014 her first since stiff person syndrome, a rare, progressive neurological disease that attacks the muscles, including those of the throat.<\/p>\n
Few doubted she could still sing. What nobody knew was whether she could get through a whole show, and then get up and do it again two nights later.<\/p>\n
Dion gave the crowd three words: \u201cJe vais bien.\u201d (\u201cI\u2019m doing fine.\u201d)<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen she hit that note, I grabbed my friend\u2019s arm. I\u2019d been holding my breath without realizing. Then I started crying. \u2018She\u2019s back. She\u2019s really back,\u2018\u201d said \u00c9lodie Marchand, 42, a primary school teacher from Nantes.<\/p>\n A disease that goes for the throat<\/p>\n Dion, 58, had not played a full concert since March 8, 2020. She was diagnosed in 2022 with stiff person syndrome, a rare, progressive neurological disease that seized the throat she had been singing with since she was 5. She canceled a world tour, then what was left of it, and went quiet. On Saturday night, 25 songs in 2 hours and 15 minutes at the Plenitude Arena in Nanterre, west of Paris, was the first night of the engagement meant to prove she can work again.<\/p>\n The sold-out run is punishing: 16 shows in five weeks, 10 more booked for May 2027, 26 nights in all before tens of thousands of people each time.<\/p>\n The last time France saw her sing, it lasted four minutes. At the Olympic opening ceremony in July 2024, Dion sang from the Eiffel Tower \u2014 one song, one night \u2014 and the world called it a resurrection. Saturday she had to do it 25 times, then get up and do it again Wednesday.<\/p>\n Stiff person syndrome affects one or two people in a million. It stiffens muscles and sets off spasms violent enough to break bones, triggered by loud noise, by touch, by emotional stress. An arena holding 30,000 people is all three at once. Singing with it, Dion told NBC in 2024, felt like being strangled.<\/p>\n \u201cTouring can be very difficult even when you\u2019re 100%,\u201d she said in a statement in 2023, canceling the last of her dates.<\/p>\n \u2018I promised myself I wouldn\u2019t cry\u2019<\/p>\n She cried before she finished the first song. In a Dior gown and a Boucheron necklace, she pressed her hands together in prayer, then missed her cue in \u201cOn ne change pas,\u201d on the line about the skinny little girl from Charlemagne, Quebec.<\/p>\n \u201cI promised myself I wouldn\u2019t cry,\u201d she said. The crowd answered by chanting the riff from \u201cSeven Nation Army.\u201d<\/p>\n She said she had learned to live with the fragility and made it her reason to keep going. Then she sang for another two hours.<\/p>\n The voice has lost some of its top; it is not the instrument that sold 250 million albums. Every big note is now a decision she makes in front of 30,000 people.<\/p>\n She took most of them. She sang \u201cMy Heart Will Go On\u201d and \u201cThe Power of Love,\u201d then Catalani\u2019s \u201cEbben? Ne andr\u00f2 lontana\u201d \u2014 Maria Callas\u2019 signature aria \u2014 in pink feathers while fake snow fell. Her disease attacks the larynx. She went for it anyway.<\/p>\n Willo Perron\u2019s set put her among gray megaliths, a pop Stonehenge. An 18-voice gospel choir came on in robes.<\/p>\n Michelle Obama watched from the seats. Outside, fans wore sashes reading \u201cCeline Dion 2026,\u201d like beauty pageant winners, and T-shirts from the LVMH house that shares her first name.<\/p>\n \u201cMy daughter kept saying, \u2018Mum, we can\u2019t go all the way to Paris for Celine,\u2019\u201d said Isabelle Gagnon, 52, a teacher from Montreal. \u201cTonight my daughter was singing beside me, and I thought: you see? This is why we came.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn Montreal, you grow up knowing those songs whether you mean to or not,\u201d said Antoine Beaulieu, 31, a graphic designer. \u201cI used to pretend I was too cool for Celine. Tonight I knew every word, so clearly that was a lie.\u201d<\/p>\n Camille Morel, 38, a pharmacist from Lyon, put her phone away. \u201cI wanted to actually be there,\u201d she said. \u201cMy voice is completely gone. I\u2019m supposed to be working tomorrow \u2014 good luck to them.\u201d<\/p>\n Then the encore, and the note: the last \u201canymore\u201d a cappella, the note bent upward, the orchestra surging in beneath her. She fanned herself, laughing at her own relief.<\/p>\n She closed with two Jean-Jacques Goldman standards and a last line to the room: I love you, my loves. Take care of yourselves.<\/p>\n It had taken her 2,379 days to get back. She has 25 more nights to go.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Singer](\"https:\/\/assets.maestronewsroom.com\/media\/shared\/wires\/ap\/20260912\/1df248cd94c0-France_Celine_Dion_8_729--1e1dd.jpg\")
![\"People](\"https:\/\/assets.maestronewsroom.com\/media\/shared\/wires\/ap\/20260911\/5f749812adea-France_Celine_Dion_77891--034dd.jpg\")