Celine Dion
Celine Dion

After a long break in Las Vegas, French-Canadian superstar singer, Celine Dion returned home to Quebec on Wednesday to kick off her first world tour in a decade.

The 51-year-old Grammy Award winner also recently announced the release of a new album titled Courage, her 12th in English which is due to be released on November 15.

The first single, Flying On My Own which features her powerful vocals backed by techno beats has already hit the airwaves, with three more, Courage, Lying Down and Imperfections dropping on Wednesday.

Known for her blockbuster ballads, Dion had in April said that she felt motivated to create new music and hit the road after the 2016 death of her husband and manager, Rene Angelil.

“When I lost Rene, he wanted me back on stage. He wanted to make sure I was still practising my passion. I wanted to prove to him that I’m fine, we’re fine, we’re going to be ok. I’ve got this,” she had said. 

She added: “Courage is exactly the way I feel. In the past three years, it has been difficult for me to talk to my children, to raise them, to lose my husband.

“Wondering am I going to sing again? So much has happened but at the same time, I feel that I’m in control of my life.”

Her music label has confirmed that about 60 concerts have been booked in North America, with two arena shows in Quebec City on Wednesday and Saturday kicking off the tour which will run through April 2020.

The show was almost two hours of mastery as she performed some of her greatest hits including I’m Alive and My Heart Will Go On as well as new material to an ecstatic crowd of roughly 20,000 spectators.

Courage marks the first album and tour in Dion’s long career without her husband who steered her success beginning in 1981 when he mortgaged his house to finance the young teen’s debut album.

The pair began a personal relationship in 1988 when she was only 19 years old and married in a lavish ceremony in 1994. Angelil died of throat cancer at age 73.

The youngest of a family of 14 children raised in the suburbs of Montreal, Dion has sold 250 million copies of 23 studio albums in English and French, including collaborations with French singer and songwriter, Jean-Jacques Goldman, Barbra Streisand and Stevie Wonder.