Dion plans ‘extraordinary’ song mix

Fans have to wait a year to see the show, but not to buy tickets for Celine Dion's long-expected return to the Colosseum at Caesars Palace next year.

But there will be fewer shows this time, planned around the school calendar of the singer's 9-year-old son.

Tickets go on sale Friday for shows launching March 15, 2011. The production will be a departure from her long-running "A New Day," with a 31-piece orchestra and band onstage.

"With the orchestra and the band, we're going to be able to perform our songs like never before," Dion said in a statement released Wednesday. "The repertoire is going to be extraordinary ... a mix of timeless Hollywood classics, along with all the favorites that my fans like to hear me sing."

She said essentially the same thing to Oprah Winfrey's national audience in the final minute of a Wednesday appearance on the syndicated talk show.

"We're still going to go over the top with the show," says John Meglen, president of the producing company, AEG Live, which operates the Colosseum. However, "With the first show. we came out skewed, if you want to call it, a little toward Cirque du Soleil."

Now, "The market's pretty oversaturated with that stuff. We think we're better going something a little more contemporary revolving solely around Celine," Meglen said.

The Canadian superstar signed on for another three-year hitch at the Colosseum, which needs new anchor tenants after the recent departure of Bette Midler.

But the new schedule will have her performing 70 shows per year instead of 160. And the 70 will revolve around the schedule of the singer's son, Rene-Charles. "Celine is a mom first and foremost," Meglen said. "She wants to work when Rene-Charles is out of school. Our template is that she wants to keep the family together, and so she'll work when the family can all be out there."

The singer never sold the house in the Lake Las Vegas development where she lived during her Colosseum run from 2003 through 2007.

Meeting last week with the singer and her manager-husband, Rene Angelil, Meglen said, "We could just see her energy is so there and she is so excited about this. That's the way they are. The next one's got to be better, more unique than the last one."

The 70 shows have become more the norm for Las Vegas headliners such as Barry Manilow and Cher. Dion's original Colosseum venture launched with 200 shows each year in 2003, but she cut back to 160 when that proved too taxing.

"I honestly wish we had more (than 70)," Meglen said. The old schedule was based on "what she could take (physically). It wasn't ever a sales factor. The sales were always there."

It has been no secret that AEG wanted to have Dion back. The singer toured for a year after "A New Day" closed in December 2007. Her career plans of late apparently revolved around attempts to conceive a second child through in vitro fertilization.

The ticket price range of $55 to $250 (before taxes and service charges) are $22 less expensive on the low end and $25 more on the high end compared to "A New Day." Tickets go sale at 10 a.m. Friday at Caesars and Ticketmaster outlets.

Meglen said the early on-sale date allows fans "lots of time to plan and get their schedules together. AEG also put the singer's 2008 world tour on sale more than a year in advance.

Meglen said he was looking for two more "anchor" acts for the Colosseum in addition to Dion, Jerry Seinfeld and Cher, whom he expects to continue there. "The best way to explain (the Cher deal) is, it's not broken, we don't need to fix it, we just need to continue it."

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.