CLOCK TICKS DOWN ON ‘A NEW DAY …’

"Do you think that's helping?"

An emotional Celine Dion asks this in response to the sustained and thunderous greeting on Wednesday, show No. 714, or four in the countdown ticking inevitably to 717.

The final performance of "A New Day ...," scheduled tonight at Caesars Palace, is the show that online ticket hawkers have posted for more than $5,000. The one Dion once wished would come sooner. The one that now, she tells Wednesday's crowd, she is sad to see finally arrive.

"We kind of knew that one day we were going to put an end to this. But what we did not know is that we were going to be a family," she says of the 60-member cast of dancers and musicians. "And that is not stoppable. That will not be breakable," she declares to more roaring applause.

After the show, nibbling at pickles from a small picnic cooler, the 39-year-old Canadian superstar reflects on the end of a landmark venture in Las Vegas entertainment. Back in 2002, the show that put big names back into play on the Strip and has been seen by nearly 3 million people was, well, the least objectionable option at the time.

"When I gave birth to my son (Rene-Charles, in 2001) I was not ready to come back into show business," she says. Her priorities had changed from an artist's point of view to a mother's.

But Las Vegas offered the singer and her husband-manager, Rene Angelil, just about everything possible to keep her in both worlds: a commute from Henderson to a new, $95 million theater for a show that was no mere headliner showcase, but a spectacle helmed by Cirque du Soleil director Franco Dragone.

It wasn't born easily. "A New Day ..." opened the same week the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003. The star was visibly uncomfortable with some of Dragone's grand ideas, such as descending 44 feet to the stage as an angel in a flying harness. Her shoes disappeared from a quick-change room on opening night, and many critics felt the star herself was lost amid the dancers and high-definition visuals.

"I think the first year for me was pretty overwhelming," she says. "And the second year, I was exhausted because of the first year. And the third year, that was the hardest for me. I didn't see the end of it. I was very tired, I had to cancel a few shows.

"You know how when you start, you're really ready for it, then you give it all, then you go like this?" Her hand draws a dip in the air. "You're exhausted. ... It was very hard for me."

But Dion stuck it out, and the show benefited from near-constant tinkering that continued right up to this week, when she decided to include "The Christmas Song" (The surrealistic bicyclist who floats across the stage now wears a Santa outfit).

"I needed to give myself time for that show to be mine as well (as Dragone's)," she says. Her husband would coax: "Do your thing. Don't be shy, be natural." But she considered the venture a 50-50 partnership with Dragone. "Am I allowed to do so? Should I do that?" she wondered.

Over time, she says, "the stage becomes your living space. It's not only a platform. You know exactly where it dips down, where it's slippery, where it's not. Once you start being comfortable in your environment, then I think the best of you comes out."

And the tough times were smoothed over by her original maternal instinct and reinforcement that the long residency was the right decision. She could sing without feeling the guilt of leaving her son every day, and with him understanding "Mommy was not going very far and always coming back home."

Next year, the family won't be home much. A world tour promoting Dion's new album, "Taking Chances," begins in South Africa on Valentine's Day and ends in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Jan. 30, 2009.

Rene-Charles is 7, and "for us the road now is no longer scary," she says. "I don't have to bring the baby food. His immune system is stronger to whatever allergies. At this age they want to explore, they need to learn. And they can learn through traveling."

But home, or at least one of them, will be the house in the Lake Las Vegas development.

"We're keeping our home," she says. "It's my son's house. This is his memory as a child. He learned how to swim, how to walk. There's no way we can stop the show here and move our stuff out of the dressing room and then" -- her voice tilts up to incredulity -- "move from our home? No. Too much."

Today is going to be hard enough. "I'm trying to really stay calm -- and strong."

Dion is noncommittal about when, where and to what degree she would perform again on the Strip. These probably are better questions for her husband, and he has a long tour to worry about.

"But I can say I would love that," she says of someday returning. Las Vegas is now "a little bit my hometown and I'll tell you why: I've never lived in another place for five years. Even Florida, I don't even know if I lived there that long," she says.

"It's been an amazing success, this whole thing. When I'm back in the area, it's going to be like singing to my hometown."

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