OTTAWA - Like her signature song My Heart Will Go On, Celine Dion has herself been going on, engaging in the longest good-bye since Seinfeld.

Yet each time she repeats her desire to (semi)retire and have babies with her aging husband, it remains water-cooler conversation.

Why? Because, as the crowd at the first of two sold-out Corel Centre performances will tell you, Quebec's pride and joy (even though she switched to English) is easily the most popular performer in the world. In any language. Period.

Nevertheless, her work has rung less true with music critics, unseemly cynics like me who constantly gripe over her lack of vocal subtlety, overblown orchestration and tired arrangements.

Entering the arena through a hole in her heart-shaped stage, the kimono-bedecked Dion launched into a children's choir-enhanced rendition of Let's Talk About Love, followed by a relatively rockin' French number and the saccharine ballad Because You Loved Me -- all of which did little to change my opinion.

After all, the songs are what they are.

But what is undeniable in Dion's live show is her powerful pipes, an unending well of vocal prowess emanating from her little Francophone frame, and her unmatchable way with fans.

Dion's every move, her every utterance elicited Backstreet Boys-level screams and by discussing her husband's recent bout with skin cancer and saying "thank you so very much for your prayers and your positive energy" she made the fans feel like they were an important part of her life, even though she "says" she's leaving them for a few years. It is a drastic change from the audience contempt exhibited by the fame-loathing stars of a few years past.

She addressed the bilingual crowd in both official languages, and though favouring her better-known Anglo songs, numbers like S'il suffisait d'aimer garnered huge responses, as did older songs like the rave-up Love Can Move Mountains.

Dion has also made duets with famous singers her M.O., but since she obviously can't take them on tour, she was forced to be creative. Her Barbra Streisand duet Tell Him was sung to DAT with an image of Babs on the big screen, as was a song with the Bee Gees, while her R. Kelly duet I'm Your Angel was performed with a live sound-alike.

Her finest moment came in the middle of the show, during a medley of her favourite songs. Performed to a tastefully minimalist musical backdrop, Dion reigned her voice in on songs like Tears in Heaven and sounded all the more beautiful for it.

And, of course, she ended with that damn Titanic song,

So while her performances of songs like It's All Coming Back To Me and My Heart Will Go On -- during which she donned a pretty pink dress and stood on a facsimile ship railing with a wind machine tussling her long hair -- were terribly over-the-top, they connected with the 18,000 in attendance in an equally over-the-top fashion.

And there's no way to criticize that.

Her opening act Corey Hart, who received the plum spot presumably for writing two of the songs on Dion's last album, also established a strong rapport with the audience.

Though he has established himself in recent years as a modestly successful adult contemporary artist, the former rock star has never and, dare I say, will never, regain his arena-filling rank.

Nevertheless, as his solid performance last night attests, he is certainly no longer a punchline.

JAM! Rating: 3.5 out of 5