She hit the high F, held it, then blew out a breath and turned to look back at the band — a quick, disbelieving glance toward her musical director. Some 30,000 people read it before they had finished screaming: Celine Dion did it.

It was “All By Myself,” the song the Quebec superstar’s voice has been measured against since 1996, saved for the encore of her first full concert in more than six years — her first since stiff person syndrome, a rare, progressive neurological disease that attacks the muscles, including those of the throat.

Few doubted she could still sing. What nobody knew was whether she could get through a whole show, and then get up and do it again two nights later.

Dion gave the crowd three words: “Je vais bien.” (“I’m doing fine.”)

“When she hit that note, I grabbed my friend’s arm. I’d been holding my breath without realizing. Then I started crying. ‘She’s back. She’s really back,‘” said Élodie Marchand, 42, a primary schoolteacher from Nantes.

Dion, 58, had not played a full concert since March 8, 2020. She was diagnosed in 2022 with stiff person syndrome, a rare, progressive neurological disease that seized the throat she had been singing with since she was 5. She canceled a world tour, then what was left of it, and went quiet. On Saturday night, 25 songs in 2 hours and 15 minutes at the Plenitude Arena in Nanterre, west of Paris, was the first night of the engagement meant to prove she can work again.

The sold-out run is punishing: 16 shows in five weeks, 10 more booked for May 2027, 26 nights in all before tens of thousands of people each time.

The last time France saw her sing, it lasted four minutes. At the Olympic opening ceremony in July 2024, Dion sang from the Eiffel Tower — one song, one night — and the world called it a resurrection. Saturday she had to do it 25 times, then get up and do it again Wednesday.

Stiff person syndrome affects one or two people in a million. It stiffens muscles and sets off spasms violent enough to break bones, triggered by loud noise, by touch, by emotional stress. An arena holding 30,000 people is all three at once. Singing with it, Dion told NBC in 2024, felt like being strangled.

“Touring can be very difficult even when you’re 100%,” she said in a statement in 2023, canceling the last of her dates.

She cried before she finished the first song. In a Dior gown and a Boucheron necklace, she pressed her hands together in prayer, then missed her cue in “On ne change pas,” on the line about the skinny little girl from Charlemagne, Quebec.

“I promised myself I wouldn’t cry,” she said. The crowd answered by chanting the riff from “Seven Nation Army.”

She said she had learned to live with the fragility and made it her reason to keep going. Then she sang for another two hours.

The voice has lost some of its top; it is not the instrument that sold 250 million albums. Every big note is now a decision she makes in front of 30,000 people.

She took most of them. She sang “My Heart Will Go On” and “The Power of Love,” then Catalani’s “Ebben? Ne andrò lontana” — Maria Callas’ signature aria — in pink feathers while fake snow fell. Her disease attacks the larynx. She went for it anyway.

Willo Perron’s set put her among gray megaliths, a pop Stonehenge. An 18-voice gospel choir came on in robes.

Michelle Obama watched from the seats. Outside, fans wore sashes reading “Celine Dion 2026,” like beauty pageant winners, and T-shirts from the LVMH house that shares her first name.

“My daughter kept saying, ‘Mum, we can’t go all the way to Paris for Celine,’” said Isabelle Gagnon, 52, a teacher from Montreal. “Tonight my daughter was singing beside me, and I thought: you see? This is why we came.”

“In Montreal, you grow up knowing those songs whether you mean to or not,” said Antoine Beaulieu, 31, a graphic designer. “I used to pretend I was too cool for Celine. Tonight I knew every word, so clearly that was a lie.”

Camille Morel, 38, a pharmacist from Lyon, put her phone away. “I wanted to actually be there,” she said. “My voice is completely gone. I’m supposed to be working tomorrow — good luck to them.”

Then the encore, and the note: the last “anymore” a cappella, the note bent upward, the orchestra surging in beneath her. She fanned herself, laughing at her own relief.

She closed with two Jean-Jacques Goldman standards and a last line to the room: I love you, my loves. Take care of yourselves.

It had taken her 2,379 days to get back. She has 25 more nights to go.

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Oprah Winfrey stood alone at the Sphere, attempting to comprehend what she had witnessed after U2’s opening night performance in 2023. Mesmerized by the multisensory event, the Queen of All Media had a thought: Could she use the groundbreaking, 4D capabilities of the globe-shaped arena to help others reach their highest potential?

“You could use this technology as a visual, immersive experience to allow people to go deeper for themselves and walk away with a sense of awe and wonder about what it means to be alive,” the media mogul, whose empire was built largely by inspiring viewers of “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” told the Associated Press. “I know that there’s more, and the more could really help people see themselves differently. It has the potential to be an incredible experience of magnificent wonder.”

That initial thought became “Oprah Winfrey's AHA,” taking place April 2-4 at the Sphere, the $2.3 billion state-of-the-art Las Vegas arena that has hosted performances by The Backstreet Boys, Phish, the Eagles and No Doubt — and a popular “The Wizard of Oz” film experience.

The two-hour live event will feature Winfrey with special guests and performances, including multiple Grammy winner Jacob Collier, poet and author Ocean Vuong, musician Ajeet and gospel singer Wintley Phipps. Among all-star collaborators crafting the experience with Winfrey are Oscar-nominated composer Max Richter, Grammy-nominated musicians Jason White and Jon Hopkins, playwright and MacArthur “genius grant” recipient Tarell Alvin McCraney and Es Devlin, the stage designer for Beyoncé's “Formation” and “Renaissance” world tours. Tickets go on sale to the general public Sept. 25.

It’s been 15 years since Winfrey ended her iconic talk show, which last week celebrated its 40th anniversary of reaching U.S. syndication. She has stayed busy with her podcast, her CEO duties for her namesake OWN TV network, and various tours and live events. At 72, when many are embracing retirement, Winfrey isn't ready to slow down completely.

“I thought about sitting behind the gate and picking roses,” Winfrey joked. “The truth is, I got another strong decade. I feel the urgency of time, and I feel like I have something to say … and using all of these collaborators to help me say it in a more forceful and phenomenal and immersive way is my offering for this remaining decade.”

Though she no longer greets millions of TV viewers daily, Winfrey’s influence remains massive. Her book club is still a bucket list aspiration for authors, products appearing on her “Favorite Things” list can change a company’s fortune, and politicians still court her support.

“I think that I’ve been given this opportunity because you know I know how to use it, I know what to do with it. But I keep asking this question: Why have I been given it? I realize it’s such a huge opportunity that I’m not supposed to take it for granted,” said the philanthropist, who still writes daily in a journal filled with gratitude entries about all she has accomplished. She hopes “AHA” attendees will be inspired to take advantage of their own opportunities as well.

“Maya Angelou says, ‘Baby, I can see why you are where you are because you have been obedient to the call,’” she said, recalling conversations with the poet and literary giant. “That’s my message to everybody: Everybody has the call. If you are obedient to the call, if you surrender to the call, you will be led to higher ground than you ever even imagined.”

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Macklemore has been dropped from the rest of Ed Sheeran’s tour after several venues said they wouldn’t allow the Seattle rapper to play, according to Sheeran’s touring group.

During the tour’s stop earlier this month at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, Macklemore called for a “free Palestine” on stage and made several statements supporting Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

The Messina Touring Group told Rolling Stone they “have been notified by venues on the upcoming U.S. tour dates that they will not allow a concert to take place with Macklemore on the lineup, which would result in the cancellation of the tour and impact hundreds of thousands of fans. After discussions with stakeholders, Macklemore will not be performing on the remaining support dates.”

Of the eight remaining stops on Sheeran’s “The Loop Tour,” the venues that allegedly objected to Macklemore’s presence, according to Rolling Stone, include Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia; Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass.; Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta; Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis; Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina; AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas; and Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida.

The rapper has landed in hot water before after making political statements on stage.

At a Palestine Will Live Forever benefit concert at Seward Park in 2024, Macklemore told the audience, “Straight up, say it. I’m not gonna stop you. I’m not gonna stop you. Yeah, (expletive) America.”

A Las Vegas music festival immediately dropped the rapper from the bill and the Seattle Mariners replaced his hit song “Can’t Hold Us” played during the seventh-inning stretch with their “Hot Dogs From Heaven” marketing campaign.

The Mariners later replaced the Macklemore song with “Louie Louie” in 2025.

Macklemore has been an outspoken advocate for Palestinians for years. The Seattle rapper released a protest song, “Hind’s Hall,” about pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Columbia University who took over a building on campus and named it after Hind Rajab, a 5-year-old killed by the Israeli military. He also released a sequel to the song a few months later.

From wire and combined services