January 14, 2016 is a date that Celine Dion will never forget. After a long battle with throat cancer, her husband René Angélil died at the age of 74. Before the man of her life and her mentor took his last breath, the Quebec diva wanted to give him a final gift. In 2015, when René Angélil’s health was declining, the singer wanted to declare all her love for him in song. For this, she was able to count on the talent of her lifelong accomplice Jean-Jacques Goldman, as reported in the documentary Celine Dion, the soundtrack of her lifebroadcast this Friday March 8 on France 3. “Jean-Jacques loved René a lot too. When Céline told him about René, he told her ‘Wait, I’m going to try to do something and it was masterful’, said songwriter Jacques Veneruso.
From then on, the songwriter took up his pen to write to him one more evening, a song about the passing of time, carried by a melancholy melody. Once again, Jean-Jacques Goldman was able to find the words to describe everything that Céline Dion felt in this painful moment. From the first listen to this song, the couple was literally moved by the text. This piece also accompanied the artistic agent at the time of his death. “René went with this title”, revealed René-Charles’ mother in an archive revealed in the documentary. With this title, released in 2016, Céline Dion showed that her love for René Angélil remains eternal.
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Céline Dion granted René Angélil’s last wish
If he was Céline Dion’s husband for 22 years, René Angélil was above all her manager. By taking the Quebec singer under his wing in 1981, he made her an international star. From then on, he could not imagine that Céline Dion would put her incredible career on hold to be able to stay at her bedside, as Élisabeth Reynaud revealed in her biography Celine Dion: Icon and woman of heart, published by Larousse editions. While the singer of the title My heart Will Go On was watching over him at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, René-Angélil asked him to return to the stage of the Colosseum in Las Vegas. “If you don’t continue, it’s like I’ll die twice.”he told her.
Ready to do anything to make the father of René-Charles and the twins Nelson and Eddy happy, Céline Dion decided to grant his last wish. “This will be the first evening, since the start of the concerts in Las Vegas, where René will not be in the room, in the front row, scrutinizing his diva”, says Élisabeth Reynaud. However, the very weakened father of the family was never very far away and watched the show broadcast on television. In front of a full house, where nearly 4,200 spectators impatiently awaited the return of the diva, Celine Dion returned to the stage. And from the first notes, she fascinated the audience with her “intact energy” and his “mastery of singing and stage” despite his concerns for the state of health of his “mentor”. At the end of her concert, Céline Dion could not help but have a tender thought for her husband. “René bequeaths me his strength. He does not give up. He is still there. Tonight, I sing for him”she declared to thunderous applause.
Photo credits: Denis Guignebourg / Bestimage