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<\/p>\nSarah Brightman is one of the leading figures in classical vocal music today. Carefully maintaining the sophistication of the genre, Brightman has nonetheless managed to achieve superstar status; to date the soprano singer has sold more than 35 million albums; that figure doesn\u2019t even include sales of 1987\u2019s Phantom of the Opera<\/i> cast soundtrack, responsible for an addition 40 million CDs sold.<\/p>\n
With more than 180 Gold and Platinum records earned to date, it\u2019s fair to wonder where Brightman stores all of those awards. \u201cMy long-term producer has them all in his home,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m very proud of my achievements and I feel very lucky, but I live very much in the moment and the future. So I don\u2019t really collect things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Brightman has previously expressed dislike for a label sometimes applied to her music: classical crossover. Asked about it now, she backpedals just a bit. \u201cIt\u2019s not that I have anything against it,\u201d she says. \u201cI think it was a marketing term. At that time, the record companies had to find a place for pieces which they couldn\u2019t necessarily put into the purest musical genre.\u201d She notes that in years past, the classical crossover label was applied to film soundtracks, scores and hard-to-classify hybrid works by jazz artists. More recently it has come to represent artists such as her, Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing wrong with hybrids,\u201d Brightman emphasizes. \u201cBecause that\u2019s about the evolution that happens to things. So that\u2019s where they put me, and some of the pieces by [operatic tenor Luciano] Pavarotti, and [Andrea] Bocelli; all of our kind of music, I suppose.\u201d<\/p>\n
She laughs and adds, \u201cI don\u2019t know really what [we\u2019re supposed to be] crossing over from<\/i>!\u201d<\/p>\n
To be fair, Sarah Brightman started out her professional career as a dancer and disco singer, soon moving on to stage work. But from her earliest days growing up just north of London, she was immersed in all kinds of music. \u201cBack in the \u201860s in England, my mother always had the radio on. One minute you\u2019d be listening to Tom Jones singing \u2018What\u2019s New, Pussycat?\u2019 and the next it would be a piece by Rachmaninoff or something. So I got to be very eclectic in my taste in\u2014and understanding of\u2014many genres of music.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brightman was trained as a classical ballet dancer; that led to her developing a special affinity for classical music. \u201cI started singing at a really young age; naturally, I could do it. I just knew what to do,\u201d she says. \u201cSo just out of pure interest, it led me organically to the path I took.\u201d<\/p>\n
An avowed fan of rock acts like David Bowie and Pink Floyd, Brightman can\u2019t easily pinpoint the ways in which their music has informed her own approach. \u201cI can\u2019t be specific, because music comes from all different areas,\u201d she says. \u201cYou receive it as an artist, and then you just decide to go forward with something. Something completely different that I wouldn\u2019t expect \u2014 maybe jazz or blues or whatever \u2014 might inspire me to do something, but it doesn\u2019t really end up like that at all. So whether it\u2019s pop music or other genres, it doesn\u2019t really matter. I get inspired by all areas.\u201d<\/p>\n
While much of Brightman\u2019s repertoire is sung in English, she has performed and recorded in French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Mandarin and Russian. \u201cI prefer to do everything in my mother tongue,\u201d she admits, but acknowledges that some lyrics don\u2019t translate well. \u201cThe message doesn\u2019t [always] come across with the text,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n
So in those cases, she sings in the original languages, even though she doesn\u2019t speak many of them. \u201cYou have to do the research to find out what\u2019s beneath the lyrics,\u201d Brightman says. \u201cThe right texture in your voice doesn\u2019t come out unless you really understand the meaning. But once you\u2019ve got yourself around that, it\u2019s perfectly the same as English.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s an inspiring, sunny optimism to many of the songs on Hymn<\/i>, Sarah Brightman\u2019s 12th and most recent solo studio album. She admits that the record\u2019s character is a mixture of both her own perspective and a desire to counter some of the unease and worry that\u2019s part of modern life. And the response to Hymn<\/i> and the current tour in support of it has been overwhelmingly favorable, too. \u201cI wanted to work with lots of human beings onstage, so we\u2019ve got a great choir, we\u2019ve got a big orchestra, and we\u2019ve got the band,\u201d she says. \u201cIt has a really good feeling about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve had a response the same ever as I do with this particular concert and the songs that are in it,\u201d Brightman says. \u201cThe very texture and feeling of the concert itself is to uplift people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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