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It’s Céline Dion’s 58th birthday, but it’s her adoring fans who may be receiving the biggest gift of all — her return to the concert stage.
In a video posted on her Instagram account Monday, Dion confirmed she will perform two concerts a week from Sept. 12 to Oct. 14 in the City of Light.
She’ll return to the stage at the Paris La Défense Arena, which has a capacity of 40,000 people.
“It’s been kind of hard keeping it a secret,” Dion said in the video, which she said was the first time she had ever recorded her own birthday message.
“This year, I’m getting the best gift of my life. I’m getting the chance to see you, to perform for you once again, in Paris.”
“I’m so ready to do this,” she said. “Happy birthday to me.”
The pre-sale will begin on April 7, with general ticket sales starting on April 10.
Quebec-born Dion was forced to cancel her Courage World Tour dates in 2022 when she revealed her long battle with stiff person syndrome — a condition that affected her ability to sing — and ultimately scuttled the tour in 2023.
The tour had already been postponed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic after playing the first 52 shows.
She wouldn’t sing publicly again until July 2024, when she performed Edith Piaf’s Hymn to Love from the Eiffel Tower during the opening ceremony of the summer Olympic Games in Paris and again that November at a fashion show in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, honouring the 45-year career of designer Elie Saab.
Dion says her fans have kept her going throughout her health struggles and recovery.
“Even in my most difficult times, you were there for me,” she said. “You’ve helped me in ways I can’t even describe.”
Catherine Pearson, a Dion tribute artist who lives near Montreal, says the announcement is a “benediction” for fans like her around the world.
“We have waited for this news for so many months, so many years now,” she told CBC News.
“All that we want is just to see her face, to hear her voice.”
Céline Dion performed in public for the first time in two years to close out the Paris 2024 opening ceremonies. The Canadian superstar sang L’Hymne a l’amour, originally performed by Edith Piaf.
Clues on Paris streets
The speculation about the My Heart Will Go On and It’s All Coming Back to Me Now singer’s return to performing has been building in recent days.
Last week posters with some of Dion’s lyrics and song titles in black cursive lettering, including lines from Power of Love and Encore en soir, popped up across the French city, spurring excitement among fans online.
Overnight Monday, France’s BFMTV broadcast CCTV footage of what looked like a nighttime rehearsal, with the Eiffel Tower, sparkling blue, displaying the words “Céline Dion,” “Paris” and “I am ready.”
The sudden appearance of posters throughout Paris featuring Céline Dion song titles, along with some media reports, have fuelled rumours the Quebec songstress is about to announce a series of comeback concerts at La Défense Arena.
Dion’s Instagram account recently posted a series of photos of herself in Paris over the years, with a caption in French that translates to “I don’t know how to tell you…”
On Monday, ahead of the announcement, her account was wiped clean until the video message appeared around 3 p.m. ET.
Dion’s return was marked on Monday night with a light show at the Eiffel Tower. Fans cheered and sang along as some of her hit songs played at Trocadero Square.
The Eiffel Tower lit up to the sound of some of Céline Dion’s biggest hits on Monday to celebrate her official return to the stage this fall. Dion, who has stepped away from the spotlight in recent years as she battled stiff person syndrome, will perform 10 concerts at La Défense Arena in Paris.
Dion vowed to ‘sing again’
The five-time Grammy and 20-time Juno award winner sat down with CBC News chief correspondent Adrienne Arsenault in 2024, near her home in Las Vegas, to discuss the effects stiff person syndrome has had on her body and her powerful voice, and her fears the condition might limit her ability to ever sing again.
Stiff person syndrome is a rare neurological disorder that affects about one or two people per million.
According to Dr. Scott Newsome, a neurologist at Johns Hopkins Stiff Person Syndrome Centre who explains the autoimmune disease in a video on the facility’s website, it’s a progressive condition with no clear cause.
Newsome says it shows up initially as a painful rigidity in muscles, causing spasms and imbalance. He says the syndrome often causes rigidity in the torso, lower back, abdominal and leg areas, affecting gait and balance.
Dion said she began experiencing symptoms of the illness back in 2008, when she first felt spasms in her vocal cords.
“With the weeks and the months and the years, things started to get more, more often — every day, worse,” she told CBC’s Arsenault. “The body started to get rigid, not flexible, more spasm, more cramping.”
But she told Arsenault she persevered through her treatment and rehabilitation with the mantra, “I’ll sing again.”
In this intensely personal, candid and revealing Canadian English-language exclusive from the team at The National, Céline Dion opens up to CBC News chief correspondent Adrienne Arsenault about coping with stiff person syndrome, losing the voice that has guided her life and how she is determined to perform again.
