It was a very public triumph, both for Paris and for Céline Dion. It received plaudits around the world as one of the highlights of the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Yet the soundtrack was a tragic one.
The Canadian diva had chosen to celebrate the great French chansonnier Édith Piaf in a live, high-stakes comeback performance delivered from the iron shoulders of the Eiffel Tower amid showers of rain and fireworks.
However, Dion did not pick La Vie en Rose, Milord, or Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien. Instead, she sang Piaf’s valedictory tribute to romantic passion Hymne à l’Amour.
Piaf wrote the lyrics to this soaring ballad in 1949 in the home she had bought with her lover, the French boxing champion Marcel Cerdan.
“The blue sky can tumble down upon us / And the Earth can also collapse / It doesn’t matter, if you love me,” it begins, in a plaintive appeal that sits well with the 56-year-old Dion, who has suffered much since she last sang live in March 2020.
In December 2022, the singer revealed she was suffering from a rare neurological syndrome that was restricting her movement, forcing her to cancel her world tour.
Her slow climb back to health and to finally performing again on stage is almost as miraculous as the golden balloon that rose above Paris on Friday night.
“If you love me / I don’t care about the entire world,” the song lyrics continue, and reviews of the Olympic opening ceremony this weekend suggest that now much of the entire world does love Dion.
Critics have spoken of the emotional power of her voice and of her flawless handling of the melody.
The sad story behind Piaf’s song begins in 1947, when the singer, known fondly as La Môme (The Kid), was on tour in New York. Meeting Cerdan during a concert, she fell madly in love, despite the fact he was a married father. Cerdan once famously said: “There is an Édith Piaf and how lucky I am, a poor boxer brute, to be loved by her.”
Piaf first sang the song to the tune written by her friend and musical collaborator Marguerite Monnot on 14 September 1949 at a cabaret venue in New York. Monnot, it is thought, had been inspired by the melody of Robert Schumann’s lied Frühlingsnacht.
But the truly tragic twist came a month later, when Cerdan boarded a flight in Paris to join Piaf in North America. He was killed when his plane crashed in the Azores and Piaf never recovered from the shock.
