A very good read if I say so myself :wub:

 

 

Caesar's is Celine World

By Leslie Gray Streeter

 

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

 

Monday, September 18, 2006

 

Caesar's Palace has become Celine World.

 

And I say that without the least bit of snark.

 

 

Because if you have the kind of juice that generates a five-year, sold-out stint in a new theater built specifically for you, then you have obviously ascended to the top of the pop culture echelon.

 

OK, technically speaking, Caesar's did not build Celine Dion, the wonderfully over-emotive singing star and former Jupiter resident, a mere theater for her musical extravaganza, A New Day.

 

They built her a colosseum!

 

A $95 million, 4,000-seat, glorious structure in keeping with Caesar's outlandish Ancient-Greece-meets-Liberace theme. Seen from the exterior, it appears that grim-faced and chiseled Charlton Heston and his chariot should be inside, rounding a dusty track, or that perhaps Russell Crowe and his sword might be messing up evil little Joaquin Phoenix something awful.

 

Of course, this being Vegas, and Caesar's being one of the most in-your-face, over-the-top casinos, not many people would bat an eye if there were, indeed, a bloody chariot race dashing past the Versace store, through the bright colosseum ticketing area and into the massive columned theater, taking out a couple of ushers and some tourists from Boise.

 

Maybe the colosseum theme is more appropriate than I thought — in my notes from the show, I wrote "Are you not entertained?" which Crowe's angry Gladiator character shouted as a bold challenge. But it's an appropriate question for A New Day, which is all about entertaining you, with fancy lighting and sound, approximately eleventy-three dancers, singers, aerialists and various people hanging off the ceiling and with the show's most impressive special effect:

 

Celine Dion.

 

Some critics begrudgingly admit that she's a great singer, but I submit that it's more than that. The petite Canadienne is a musical force of nature who can sell even the most syrupy of lyrics because she's not just going through the motions — no matter how many times she's done this show, she sings every song like it is the most important thing she is ever going to do.

 

This, friends, is why her lovingly jerky stage movements, chest thumping and gracious nods to the audience work for her, where a lesser performer would sink under the weight of all that unfettered festiveness. Celine Dion, you see, is a true believer, resolute that her Heart Will Go On, that she's everything she is Because You Loved Me, and that Love Can Move Mountains.

 

And even if you don't cotton to her particular brand of bombastic, over-the-top lyrics, sets and inexplicable odd characters swanning deferentially around her on stage, you just might love A New Day because Celine's enthusiasm is contagious. She doesn't shy away from sincerity, or the possibility that being the centerpiece of a vaguely mystical production featuring dancers, singers and a guy dressed as a magic bellhop might sink into a beautiful lake of cheese.

 

She transcends cheese, and I have never seen anything like it. She is a one-woman pageantry bandwagon, the Unsinkable Molly Brown with a several-octave vocal range.

 

At one point, she sings Stevie Wonder's I Wish, without changing one word, including the opening line "Looking back on when I was a little nappy-headed boy." To my knowledge, Celine Dion is not, nor has she ever been, a little nappy-headed boy.

 

But this is Celine World, her very own stage in a colosseum erected especially for her. And even though it makes absolutely no sense, she makes you believe it. She plants her feet, contorts her face into a serious expression of nostalgic funk-grooviness, and sells that thing.

 

In Celine World, if a thin French-Canadian woman believes fervently that she was a little nappy-headed boy, then God bless her, you believe her, too.

 

The fantastical force field around Celine World is so strong that it can even sell the silliest portions of A New Day, which is produced by Franco Dragone, a veteran of many Cirque Du Soleil shows such as O and Mystere.

 

For instance, there's a character I referred to as the Magic Bellhop, a uniform-and-hat clad lad who follows Celine from set piece to set piece. Is he supposed to be the conduit between the audience and Celine World, personally escorting them and their mental baggage into a state of awe?

 

Or did Dragone or choreographer Mia Michaels of So You Think You Can Dance fame look around and go "You know what would be really cool here? A Magic Bellhop! We don't know what it means, but it's gonna look fierce!"

 

Celine manages to get through most of her famous hits during the show, either in their entirety or in medley form. My favorite parts were the most grandiose, like when the couples pantomimed passion in a digitally-produced grand hallway during the bombastic Jim Steinman number It's All Coming Back To Me Now. Then there's that woman who floats, as if gliding through water, above the stage, at the mournful Celtic introduction of My Heart Will Go On from Titanic, her stories-long white train trailing behind her.

 

Was she supposed to be an angel? A theatrical representation of Titanic's heroine Rose, who loses the love of her life at sea and returns as an old woman to die on the ocean, forever spiritually sealed with her love? Or just another cool excuse to suspend somebody from the ceiling?

 

Who cares? I believed it, all of it.

 

I believed it when Celine thanked the crowd, when she shot a "Can you believe this?" smile while being lifted by hunky male dancers, like she wasn't an international megastar but your college friend Kiki who got picked by the Chippendales to join them on stage. I believed it when she appeared moved when dedicating the schmaltzy If I Could to her son Rene Charles and all the children everywhere.

 

Normally, that sort of thing would make me snort, but I applauded, and swooned, and clapped my hands to my chest and let it all in.

 

Mock me and take my Cynical Critic's badge and secret decoder ring if you must. There is no room, you see, for cynicism in Celine World. You gladly submit to her earnestness, her chest-thumping, her emphatic John Travolta arms thrusts to the heavens. She's coming for you. And you have very little choice but to check your baggage, grab onto the nearest floating dancer, and come along.

 

Are you not entertained? You are, absolutely.

 

SOURCE

Edited September 18, 200618 yr by suus_73

Fantastic article/review! :D

Finally a reporter who knows what she's talking about :lol: