Jan. 6, 2005

All Hail the Queen

Opening night at Céline’s Palace

By STEVE FRIESS

They slinked down the red carpet with million-watt grins, gliding past the hoards of photo-snapping peasants lining the path to Queen Céline’s coronation without the sort of hesitations about inappropriate displays of wartime glamour that deep-sixed this ritual only two nights earlier at the Academy Awards.

It mattered little to the peons that this was hardly an A-list crowd. Shrieks worthy of a Megabucks win rang out across the Caesars Palace casino as ’N Sync’s Lance Bass wandered through in a tattered-denim daze. Eager fans begged David Hasselhoff to bend over and pose with his wheelchair-bound wife and her apparent broken ankle. Lifetime TV staple Jane Seymour patiently allowed the phalanx of paparazzi to snap her, letting her red hair cascade by leaning back so far that she nearly fell over. Paul Anka waxed philosophic about Céline’s coming reign and the new ground it might break, while Tim Allen explained he’d brought his daughter out to distract her from the Iraq war.

And so, as the forced three-year enthronement of Céline Dion as Vegas monarch by a coalition of the willing—Chrysler, Caesars and Sony—commenced, it was clear the handlers had planned this event to stand apart from the typical Vegas traditions. A few state and local politicians from Gov. Kenny Guinn to County Commissioner Rory Reid were on hand, sure, but such Vegas figures as Sig Rogich to Oscar Goodman were nowhere to be seen. And the local entertainment community, ordinarily invited to sample and help launch the friendly competition, was represented mainly this time by Siegfried & Roy, whose names poor Mike Weatherford of the Las Vegas Review-Journal had to spell at least three times for foreign journalists. Robin Leach, usually a center of attention himself at these things, looked lost and lonely on the carpet.

Once inside, though, every creature from Bass to Leach was treated as an equal by a benevolent and grateful Queen Céline. She made her entrance with an understated walk from the center of the world’s largest LED screen in a glittery red pantsuit while crooning the Nat King Cole standard “Nature Boy.”

Bottom line: The $95 million, 4,000-seat Colosseum, as advertised, is magnificent. Her $100 million voice, as her recordings would lead you to imagine, is a scorching force that enveloped the room. And some of the onstage antics, as you might suspect with backup from that massive LED screen and a cast of 60 dancers, were mesmerizing.

And yet, the promise of A New Day … bellowed by promoters for months was that it would somehow break new ground in musical-entertainment theater, that it would show Dion in a new light, that it would alter the landscape of Las Vegas in a way not seen since the Mirage was built.

Turns out, this is a cabaret act on steroids. It’s good planning to have Céline wear red for half of the show, because from time to time it’s easy to lose track of her on that massive stage and before the kaleidoscopic imagery projected from behind. Often her voice is merely an instrument, a part of the orchestra, setting the tone for the dance numbers performed around her. And because her music is such famously easy listening, there comes a point at which the audience, so lulled as to be nearly comatose, must be snapped awake and urged to their feet by the dancers rushing into the aisles for “Love Can Move Mountains.”

Sure, it was pretty cool to watch Céline float into the ceiling and out of sight for her exquisite rendition of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” And watching her lay back in an armchair as dozens of shirtless, chiseled men swarm upon her for “Seduces Me” adds a saucy, risqué dimension to Dion that ought to be expanded.

But whereas Vegas acts typically thrive on high energy, Dion ends with a splendid lullaby, “What a Wonderful World,” and no encore. Her most loyal subjects will be sated, certainly, and perhaps there are enough of them to fill 20,000 seats a week. But how will Caesars feel when they wander out more in the mood for a pillow than the poker table?

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