Sarah Brightman
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Background information
Born August 14, 1960 (1960-08-14) (age 47)
Origin Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England
Genre(s) Classical crossover, operatic pop
Occupation(s) Singer, actress
Years active 1976-present
Label(s) A&M Records (1993)
East West Records (1995-1997)
Angel Records/EMI (1998-present)
Website
http://www.sarah-brightman.com
Sarah Brightman (born August 14, 1960) is an English classical crossover soprano, actress and dancer.
Brightman debuted as a dancer in troupes such as Hot Gossip and later released a string of disco singles. She achieved greater fame as a musical theatre performer and partner of theatre composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, originating several roles, including Christine Daaé in The Phantom of the Opera. Her 1984 marriage to Lloyd Webber attracted active tabloid coverage. The couple divorced in 1990, effectively ending her musical theatre career.
After her divorce, Brightman established a position as a crossover artist with former Enigma producer Frank Peterson. Her style, a blend of classical vocals and pop-inspired instrumentation and arrangement, earned her further success. To date, Brightman has received over 150 Gold and Platinum awards in 34 countries[1] and is the only artist to hold #1 spots on the Billboard Classical and Dance charts simultaneously.
Biography
Sarah Brightman was born in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England to Paula and Grenville Brightman. She was the eldest of six children. Her ambition to be an artist was apparent from an early age; she took ballet lessons starting from age three. At age eleven she attended a boarding school for theatre, where she remained despite her displeasure with the institution. Brightman auditioned for London's Royal Ballet some time later, but was rejected.[2]
At age sixteen, in 1976, Brightman joined the dance group Pan's People. After some time, she moved on and led Hot Gossip, a mixed dance act who appeared regularly on The Kenny Everett Video Show. The group, which was noticeably more provocative than Pan's People, had a chart-topping disco hit in 1978 with "I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper", a space-themed track which sold half a million copies and reached number six on the UK charts. The group released a follow-up single, "Adventures of the Love Crusader", six months later, but it was less successful, failing to chart on the UK's top 50.[3] Brightman, now solo, released several more disco singles in subsequent years under Whisper Records; these included "Not Having That" and a cover of the song "My Boyfriend's Back".[4] However, none of these became as prominent as "I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper".
[edit] 1981-1989: Stage career
In 1981, Brightman auditioned for a role in the new musical Cats and received the role of Jemima. It was there that she met her future husband, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber; the two married in 1984. Brightman starred in several of his musicals, including Song and Dance and the mass Requiem, the latter expressly written for her voice. With Requiem she earned her first Grammy nomination.[1]
Brightman achieved greater success with her starring role as Christine Daaé in Lloyd Webber's adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera. The role of Christine, like Requiem before it, was specifically written for her.[1] Lloyd Webber refused to open The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway unless Brightman originated the role of Christine. Initially, the American Actors' Equity Association balked, due to their policy of hiring only Americans. Lloyd Webber had to agree to cast an American in a leading role in his next West End musical before the Equity would allow Brightman to appear (a promise he kept later in the casting for Aspects of Love).[5]
After leaving Phantom, Brightman pursued several projects. Immediately after her departure, she performed in a tour of Lloyd Webber's music throughout England, Canada, and the United States, and performed Requiem in the Soviet Union. She also released some studio recordings. These releases included the single "Anything But Lonely" from Aspects of Love and two solo albums: the 1988 album The Trees They Grow So High, a compilation of traditional folk songs accompanied by piano, and the 1989 album The Songs That Got Away, a musical theatre compilation of songs which were cut from shows by composers such as Irving Berlin and Stephen Sondheim. By 1990, Brightman and Lloyd Webber separated. After the official divorce, Brightman was given a lead role in Lloyd Webber's Aspects in London opposite Michael Praed, before transferring to Broadway. It would be her last theatre role.[4]
1990's: Solo career
Her stage career curtailed, Brightman pursued solo recording in Los Angeles. She was inspired by the German band Enigma and requested to work with one of its members. Her request was answered and in 1991 she traveled to Germany to meet her future producer, Frank Peterson. Their first collaboration on a major label release (with A&M Records) was Dive (1993), a loosely water-themed pop album that featured the hit "Captain Nemo" (a cover of a song by the Swedish electronica band Dive).[6]
Fly (1995), a pop/rock album and her second collaboration with Peterson, propelled Sarah Brightman to fame in Europe with the hit "A Question of Honour". The song, introduced at the World Boxing Championship match between Germany's Henry Maske and Graciano Rocchigiani, featured a mix of electronic dance music, rock elements, classical strings, and excerpts from the aria "Ebben? ... Ne andrò lontana" from Alfredo Catalani's opera La Wally.[7]
"Time to Say Goodbye" ("Con te partirò") was the second Brightman song debuted for Maske, this time at his retirement match. This duet with tenor Andrea Bocelli sold more than 3 million copies in Germany alone,[1] became Germany's highest-selling single, and was a bestseller in numerous other countries. The album eventually sold over 5 million copies worldwide. Due to the song's success, a 1996 re-issue of Fly featured "Time to Say Goodbye" as the first track.
Timeless (released in 1997, with the title Time to Say Goodbye in the United States) contained "Time to Say Goodbye" and other classical-inspired tracks such as "Just Show Me How to Love You", a duet with José Cura (originally sung by Dario Baldambembo with the title "Tu Cosa Fai Stasera?"), a cover of the Queen hit "Who Wants to Live Forever", and "Tu Quieres Volver", (originally recorded by the Gipsy Kings).
The album was a smash-hit worldwide and is possibly Brightman's most successful solo release. Her mainstream exposure in the United States also began around this time, starting with an appearance on Bocelli's December 1997 PBS television special, duetting "Time to Say Goodbye"; later, in March 1998, her own PBS special, Sarah Brightman in Concert at the Royal Albert Hall, marked the key point when she crossed from Billboard's Top Heatseekers chart to the Billboard 200 chart, with Time to Say Goodbye.[8] Despite this, however, attempts to market songs from the album to U.S. Top 40 and heritage radio formats were mostly unsuccessful. [8]
2000 to present
Subsequent albums included Eden (1998) (the title track of which was a cover of a song by Belgian band Hooverphonic), and La Luna (2000). Both of these albums took the crossover beginnings she had originally introduced on Time to Say Goodbye and made them her own. Reviews, however, were mixed - LAUNCHcast deemed Eden "deliriously sappy",[9] while All Music Guide called Eden "a winning combination"[10] and La Luna "a solid, stirring collection".[11]
Chart performance for both albums was more uniformly positive. Eden reached #65 on the Billboard 200 charts (certified Gold for selling over 500,000 copies), and La Luna peaked at #17. In addition, both albums reached #1 on Billboard's Classical Crossover charts. At the end of 2001, Billboard magazine noted Brightman as one of four classical crossover artists from the UK (the others being Charlotte Church, Russell Watson, and bond) with albums on both the Classical Crossover and Billboard 200 charts, a phenomenon which, it said, contributed to a resurgence of UK music in the U.S. after "a historic low" in 1999.[12]
In 2001, Brightman released Classics, an album comprised of operatic arias and other classical pieces, including a solo version of "Time to Say Goodbye". Many of the songs on this album originally appeared on her previous albums. Reviews were somewhat better: Entertainment Weekly, although calling Brightman a "stronger song stylist than a singer", gave the album a grade of B-.[13]
Her 2003 album Harem represented another departure: a Middle Eastern-themed album influenced by dance music. On Harem, Brightman collaborated with artists such as Ofra Haza and Iraqi singer Kazem al-Saher. Nigel Kennedy contributed violin tracks to the songs "Free" and "The War Is Over", and Jaz Coleman contributed arrangements.[1]
The album peaked at #29 on the Billboard 200 charts (with sales tracked by Nielsen SoundScan figuring at approximately 333,000, or about one-third the total sales of La Luna),[14] #1 on the Billboard Classical Crossover chart, and yielded a #1 dance/club single with the remix of the title track. Some time later, another single from the album (the ballad "Free", cowritten with Sophie B. Hawkins) became a second Top-10 hit on this chart. Nevertheless, radio airplay for the album's singles, at least in the U.S., was almost nonexistent.[14]
The albums Eden, La Luna, and Harem were accompanied by live tours which incorporated the theatricality of her stage origins. Brightman acknowledged this in an interview, saying, "They're incredibly complicated...[but also] natural. I know what works, what doesn't work, all the old tricks."[15] In both 2000 and 2001, Brightman was among the top 10 most popular British performers in the U.S., with concert sales grossing $7.2 million from 34 shows in 2000 and over $5 million from 21 shows in 2001.[12]
Most recently, the Harem tour grossed over $60 million and sold over 700,000 tickets,[1] $15 million and 225,000 sales of which came from the North American leg; though with ticket prices raised 30% from previous tours, average sales per venue were up 65%.[14] In North America, Harem tour promoters Clear Channel Entertainment (now Live Nation) took the unusual step of advertising to theatre subscribers, in an effort to reach fans of Brightman's Broadway performances, and also sold VIP tickets (at $750 each) that included on-stage seating during the concert and a backstage pass.[14]
Tour reviews have been mixed: one critic from the New York Times called the La Luna tour "not so much divine but post-human" and "unintentionally disturbing: a beautiful argument of emptiness."[16] In contrast, a reviewer from the Boston Globe deemed the Harem tour "unique, compelling" and "charmingly effective."[17]
Television specials on PBS were produced for every Brightman album in the U.S.; a director of marketing has credited these as her number-one source of exposure in the country.[12]
Brightman released a DVD collection of her music videos on October 3, 2006 under the title of Diva: The Video Collection. Diva: The Singles Collection is the accompanying CD, released on the same date. The album marked the first time Brightman has released a greatest hits album in the United States; it reached #1 on the Billboard Classical Crossover chart. (Classics, from 2001, featured seven new recordings in addition to the previously-released material, and her other reflective offering, The Best of 1990-2000, was a European-only release.)
Brightman was one of the artists featured on the January 2007 series of the prime time BBC One Show Just the Two of Us, partnered with English cricketer Mark Butcher.[18] The pair finished the competition in third place.
Brightman performed at the Concert For Diana in July 2007, singing "All I Ask Of You" from Phantom of the Opera in a duet with Josh Groban.
She is currently working on a new album, working title "Symphony", that she describes as having a gothic metal feel to it.[19] The current release date is set at January 29th, 2008 but is still subject to change.[20] In 2007, Brightman was announced as singing the theme song to the 10th Pokémon motion picture, Dialga VS Palkia VS Darkrai. A preview of the film and the song, Be With You: Itsumo Soba ni (Always by Your Side), can be found on her page on the Toshiba EMI website.[21]
On 7 July 2007 she performed "Time to say Goodbye" and "Nessun Dorma" at the Chinese leg of Live Earth in Shanghai to standing ovations in the pouring rain.[22]
Music and voice
Brightman has undergone vocal training first with Elizabeth Hawes, head of the Trinity Music College in London, and later with Ellen Faul of Juilliard. She has a three-octave vocal range[23] that extends to an E above Soprano C.[4]
David Caddick, a conductor of Phantom, has stated:
"What is amazing about Sarah is that she has two voices, really. She can produce a pop, contemporary sound, but she can also blossom out into a light soprano. The soprano part of her voice can go up to an E natural above high C. She doesn't sing it full out, but it is there. Of course, she has to dance while she is singing some of the time, so it's all the more extraordinary."[4]
She sometimes deploys both her pop and classical voices in the same song. "Anytime, Anywhere" from Eden is among one of the songs, which is based on Tomaso Albinoni's Adagio in G minor. In that song, she starts out in classical voice, switches to pop voice temporarily, and finishes with her classical voice.[24]
Brightman's music is generally classified as classical crossover. Brightman, in a 2000 interview with People, dismissed the label as "horrible" but stated she understood the need for categorization.[25] Her music influences include 60s and 70s musicians and artists such as David Bowie and Pink Floyd.[1] Her music alternates in style from pop/rock to classical and contemporary. The material on her albums ranges from versions of opera arias from composers such as Puccini (on Harem, Eden, and Timeless), to pop songs by artists such as Kansas ("Dust in the Wind" on Eden), Dido ("Here with Me" on La Luna), and Procol Harum ("A Whiter Shade of Pale" on La Luna).
Personal life
At age 18, Brightman married Andrew Graham Stewart, a music manager. This marriage ended in divorce. She met Lloyd Webber while performing in Cats. Lloyd Webber divorced his first wife, Sarah Hugill, to marry Brightman in 1984. During their partnership, the couple faced intense media and tabloid scrutiny. The marriage lasted until 1990, when they divorced. Brightman acknowledged the marriage in a 1999 interview as a "difficult time" but also one of much creative output.[26] Currently they are on friendly terms; at the 20th London anniversary of The Phantom of the Opera, Lloyd Webber publicly pronounced Brightman a "wonderful woman" and "absolutely beloved mentor". In 1990, Brightman became involved with Peterson; this relationship lasted for eleven years.
Brightman has suffered several personal crises, including the suicide of her father in 1992, and two miscarriages. In an interview with the British magazine Hello!, she stated that motherhood would have been "lovely", but she accepted her destiny peaceably.[27
