It’s been eight years since Shania Twain’s last performed in public, but the country-pop megastar showed she is most definitely “Still the One” during the debut of her Las Vegas residency this past weekend.

Titled “Shania: Still the One” (in reference, of course, to her double-Grammy-winning 1998 hit single “You’re Still the One”), Shania’s series of shows kicked off Saturday night (Dec. 1) at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The Canadian country star will go on to perform there on select nights over the next two years.

According to an extensive review of the debut performance by New York Times critic Jon Caramanica, Shania didn’t waste any time with the spectacle. She entered the stage on a motorcycle suspended from the air, dressed in a form-fitting catsuit, and “for about an hour and a half revisited the over-the-top glitter of her arena tours.”

Shania Twain opens her Las Vegas residency, Dec. 1, 2012 (Jeff Bottari/Getty Images)

In a review in the Las Vegas Sun, critic Robin Leach said the show “packed a high-octane wallop that would’ve KO’d many a UFC fighter.” Yowza!

Caramanica called portions of Shania’s show “busy” and “rotely dizzying,” but noted that “when things calmed down” she “sounded comfortable and strong.”

That apparently included the moment toward the end when she sang straight into the eyes of a white horse (during the signature ballad “You’re Still the One”). Caramanica described her voice during that number as “milky and resonant.”

And the appearance of a horse during her stage show isn’t out of nowhere. She has a lifelong love of horses, and she told Leach during an interview last month (“Horses calm me. I love being around them”); she even rode down the Las Vegas Strip on horseback a couple weeks back, to promote the opening of her show.

Shania Twain in Las Vegas on Dec. 1, 2012 (Jeff Bottari/Getty Images)

Shania, for her part, was apparently emotional during her splashy, high-profile return to the stage. At one point, Leach reports that Shania spoke directly to the audience, saying that Saturday’s show was “an overwhelming night for me. It’s been a lot of years since I was out here. I realize what I have been missing, and I am very humbled to be invited here on the same stage as my icons Rod Stewart, Elton John and Celine Dion.”

To get the full affect you’ll have to see the show for yourself. Tickets start at $55 and are on sale for additional days in December as well as March of 2013.

- Kurt Wolff, CBS Local