Forty and fabulous

She loomed from backstage without much fanfare. The audience hardly recognized her until a few seconds later when her image was projected onto the giant screen right above her where she made her entrance. But when she belted out her first note, it was distinctly Celine. The audience burst into thunderous applause. Such was the magic of Celine Dion.

The 15,000-seat Venetian Arena was packed with both expats and local Chinese, many taking their teenage children along. Macao was the first Chinese city of Dion's Taking Chances World Tour, which will take her further to Shanghai and Beijing coming April.

The Canadian songstress, who turns 40 this Sunday, acknowledged her audience by greeting and showing appreciation in simple Mandarin.

At the end of the show, when she posed with reporters from Beijing, she wished Beijing "a successful Olympic Games".

This is a diva who does not act imperious. Her down-to-earth personality came through in the brief post-concert meeting. She shook hands with everyone and made small talk.

This after a grueling 1.5-hour show, during which she crooned, warbled and blasted out a total of 23 songs.

On stage, her presence was electrifying. There was no slack in her performance. She threw herself into every song and every note. Except for a few breaks for costume changes, filled in by dancers, she was on stage the entire time, singing her heart out.

The first half of the program was made up of her biggest hits, such as The Power of Love and Because You Loved Me, as well as the title song from her new album Taking Chances.

The power of her voice was evident. Soaring high notes and sultry low ones were delivered with precision and infused with emotion. The biggest surprise was her unique combination of vocal prowess and emotional abandon. She did not hold in, and that enabled her to pull her audience right into the world of her music.

The second half demonstrated her immense range of vocal styles: mostly rock and soul, with a few Latin and one French hit Pour Que Tu M'aimes Encore interspersed into the mix. Her rendition of We Will Rock You encouraged the mild-mannered audience to stand and clap.

My Heart Will Go On, the mega-hit from Titanic, was the only encore.

She skipped such wonderful duets as Beauty and Beast and When I Fall in Love, but there was no way the audience would let her go without vicariously experiencing the giant cruise ship sinking as a backdrop for a three-handkerchief epic romance.

On the whole, her repertory for the world tour is anchored around the pillar of pop rock, in which she got to showcase the incomparable agility and stratospheric heights of her voice.

Diehard fans in China, who would never complain about her supposed over-emoting, are obsessed with her goosebump-raising ballads, both "power ballads" and soft ballads, while the rock crowd would probably find her tribute to rock as paying lip service.

(Her new album supposedly reveals her inner rock'n'roll wild child, though.)

The show did not depend on gimmicks, the kind commonly seen among Hong Kong and Taiwan pop singers.

The dance accompaniment was decorative and did not overwhelm the staging. And Celine did not engage in "audience interactions" such as shaking hands or reminiscing about her first love.

The concert on tour is not a replication of her Las Vegas show, which is available on disk. Starting in 2002, Celine Dion held a six-year residency in a 4,100-seat theater specially built for her at Caesars Palace.

A total of 3 million viewers saw her on that stage, where she performed 717 shows. The current tour, which started last winter, will continue for a year. Given her tireless energy in one venue, it can be expected that she will take her tornado of a voice wherever she tours and blow everyone away.

(China Daily 03/25/2008 page19)