Dion: The Hostess With the Mostest

Celine Dion burst onto the Universal Amphitheatre stage on Tuesday giddy with excitement--and that enthusiasm was hard for even skeptics to resist. Throughout the nearly two-hour, 100% angst-free performance, the Grammy-winning Canadian pop singer exercised her formidable voice and proved a charming hostess with winsome good humor. As a song stylist, however, Dion doesn’t bring much style to her material.

The youngest of a Quebec family of 14 music-loving kids, Dion grew up poor and found fame early. Now, at 28, she is the world’s top-selling recording artist. Yet she remains the Pollyanna of the pop diva world. Her demeanor was not at all jaded--indeed, she seemed still genuinely amazed by her fortune. And she made sure that not just she, but the entire capacity crowd, had a blast.

Clad smartly in a white pantsuit and white boots (matching her white microphone), Dion came off as playfully larger-than-life. She romped through selections from her Grammy-winning “Falling Into You” album, earlier favorites, vintage soul tunes and some French-language songs.

Her boundless energy dwarfed even the elaborate stage--complete with a nine-member band, an old-fashioned street light, steps and a ramp. She pulled fans straight into the eye of her benign storm of personality, pausing several times to chat, as if the audience were a coterie of close friends. “I love to sing, but I love to talk, too,” she apologized brightly--as if anyone minded.

These lengthy digressions covered everything from her “wonderful” upbringing to the importance of music education in schools to Monday’s Academy Awards, where she performed not one but two songs and met both Muhammad Ali and Barbra Streisand.

It was a nonstop love feast on stage, too, as Dion showered praise on the band members, giving each a moment in the spotlight. She bubbled with joy for the young L.A. violinist who performed with her on “To Love You More,” a segment taped for a VH1 special supporting children’s musical education.

Despite her incredible pipes, Dion’s flawless singing displayed scant evidence of an emotional connection to the lyrics, although the French tunes were more passionate and many of the ballads did glitter, however coldly. But the R&B; numbers, including the classic “River Deep--Mountain High,” were little more than Vegas-revue renditions--flashy, but sterile. It was hard not to think of Tina Turner’s rendition of “River,” which blazed directly from her gut, while Dion’s version merely vaulted straight out of her voice box.

Such moments severely shrank Dion’s epic persona, and not even a stage crowded with a gospel choir during the encore could build her back up. As she tossed off a closing take on “Twist and Shout,” it was she who seemed dwarfed.