Iconic chanteuse, Céline Dion, delivered a jaw-dropping performance at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games opening ceremony on Friday (July 26, 2024).
Standing on the balcony of a sparkling Eiffel Tower (with the Olympic rings affixed to its iron sides), and dressed a stunning silver Dior gown, Ms. Dion flawlessly belted out an emotional rendition of Édith Piaf’s 1950 track, L’Hymne à l’amour (Hymn of Love) to more than 300,000 spectators, including an estimated 6,800 athletes – in an incredible comeback from illness.
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L’Hymne à l’amour is perhaps France’s most famous song about love, written by legendary singer Piaf to the love of her life (French-Algerian professional boxer, Marcel Cerdan) who died in a plane crash barely a month after it was first performed. Seventy-five years before Dion’s appearance at Paris 2024, Piaf performed the cult song for the first time, the same raw emotion in her voice.
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Céline’s appearance marked the first time that she has sung live, and takes place a year-and-a-half after she withdrew from public engagements due to Stiff Person Syndrome, a neurological condition which causes muscle spasms and had made it hard for the Canadian singer to control her vocal cords. But she pressed on.
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Ms. Dion had shown signs of determination for any kind of return to stage when, in her recent Prime Video documentary I Am: Celine Dion, she said with confidence: “If I can’t run, I’ll walk. If I can’t walk, I’ll crawl… I won’t stop.”
Her resilience may just be well worth studying, as captured in an interesting Harvard Business Review piece titled The Secret to Building Resilience:
Resilience isn’t just a kind of solitary internal “grit” that allows us to bounce back. New research shows that resilience is also heavily enabled by strong relationships and networks. We can nurture and build our resilience through a wide variety of interactions with people in our personal and professional lives. These interactions can help us to alter the magnitude of the challenge we’re facing. They can help crystalise the meaningful purpose in what we are doing or help us see a path forward to overcome a setback — these are the kinds of interactions that motivate us to persist. Are your relationships broad and deep enough to help support you when you hit setbacks?
The 2024 Olympics opening ceremony concluded in Paris on July 26, where more than 10,000 athletes joined a rainy celebration parade along the River Seine. It marked the first time the parade of nations has taken place outside of a stadium.
Two interesting reactions from the REDDIT community, about Céline Dion’s performance:
@Afraidofunicorns: She will be remembered for ages just because of this performance. Pure state of the art
@Maleficent-Sport1970: I don’t know what she was singing and it still moved me.
Reading Resource: The Secret to Building Resilience [by Rob Cross, Karen Dillon, and Danna Greenberg/ Harvard Business Review]
- Numeris Média is officially accredited media to the 2024 Paris Olympic Games