British soprano (born 1960)
Sarah Brightman (born 14 August 1960) is an English classical crossover soprano singer and actress.
Brightman began her career as a member of the dance troupe Hot Gossip and released several disco singles as a solo performer. In 1981, she made her West End musical theatre debut in "Cats" and met composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, whom she later married. She went on to star in several West End and Broadway musicals, including "The Phantom of the Opera", where she originated the role of Christine Daaé. Her original London cast album of "Phantom" was released in CD format in 1987 and sold 40 million copies worldwide, making it the biggest-selling cast album ever.
After retiring from stage acting and divorcing Lloyd Webber, Brightman resumed her music career with former Enigma producer Frank Peterson, this time as a classical crossover artist. She has been credited as the creator and remains among the most prominent performers of this genre, with worldwide sales of more than 25 million albums and two million DVDs, establishing herself as the world's best-selling soprano.
Brightman's 1996 duet with the Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, "Time to Say Goodbye", topped the charts all over Europe and became the highest and fastest-selling single of all time in Germany, where it stayed at the top of the charts for 14 consecutive weeks and sold over three million copies. It subsequently became an international success, selling 12 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling singles of all-time. She has collected over 200 gold and platinum record awards in 38 countries. In 2010, she was named by "Billboard" the fifth most influential and best-selling classical artist of the 2000s decade in the US and according to Nielsen SoundScan, she has sold 6.5 million albums in the country.
Brightman is the first artist to have been invited twice to perform the theme song at the Olympic Games, first at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games where she sang "Amigos Para Siempre" with the Spanish tenor José Carreras with an estimated global audience of one billion people, and 16 years later in 2008 in Beijing, this time with Chinese singer Liu Huan, performing the song "You and Me" to an estimated four billion people worldwide.
In 2012, Brightman was appointed as the UNESCO Artist for Peace for the period 2012–2014, for her "commitment to humanitarian and charitable causes, her contribution, throughout her artistic career, to the promotion of cultural dialogue and the exchanges among cultures, and her dedication to the ideals and aims of the Organization". Since 2010, Brightman has been Panasonic's global brand ambassador.
Family and early life.
Brightman is the eldest of six children of businessman Grenville Brightman (1934–1992) and Paula Brightman, née Hall. She was brought up in Little Gaddesden near Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England. At the age of three she began taking dance and piano classes. She
then went on to perform in local festivals and competitions. At age 11, she successfully auditioned for the Tring Park School for the Performing Arts, a school specialising in performing arts.
She received her education at Elmhurst Ballet School, Camberley, the Arts Educational School in Chiswick, West London, and the Royal College of Music.
In 1973, at the age of 13, Brightman made her theatrical debut in the musical "I and Albert" at the Piccadilly Theatre, London, playing one of Queen Victoria's daughters (Victoria).
In 1976 she was recruited into Arlene Phillips' troupe Hot Gossip in 1977. The group had a disco hit in 1978 with "I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper", which sold half a million and reached number six on the UK charts. She was also briefly with Pan's People after they parted with their host show Top of the Pops in 1976. Brightman, now solo, released more disco singles under her own label, Whisper Records, such as "Not Having That!" and a cover of the song "My Boyfriend's Back". In 1979, Brightman appeared on the soundtrack of the film "The World Is Full of Married Men" and sang the song "Madam Hyde".
Career.
1981–1989: Stage career.
In 1981, Brightman auditioned for the new musical "Cats", by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, and was cast as Jemima. After a year in "Cats", Brightman took over from Bonnie Langford as Kate in "The Pirates of Penzance" at the Drury Lane Theatre, London, and appeared as Tara Treetops in "Masquerade", a musical based on Kit Williams's book of the same title. Beginning on December 18,1982, she left to play the title role in Charles Strouse's children's opera, "Nightingale".
Enticed by a rave review, Lloyd Webber went to watch her in the show one evening and was greatly impressed by her performance. Though she had appeared in his musical "Cats", Lloyd Webber had not previously singled Brightman out as a great talent. The two married in 1984, and Brightman appeared in Lloyd Webber's subsequent musicals including "The Phantom of the Opera" and "Song and Dance", as well as the mass Requiem, which was written and composed for Lloyd Webber's father.
In 1985, Brightman's recording of "Pie Jesu" was a strong commercial success, selling 25,000 copies on the first day of release and peaking at number 3, despite the lyrics being in Latin. With classical music permeating the Lloyd Webber household (Brightman was in heavy operatic training at the time), Lloyd Webber was moved to write the Requiem Mass as a tribute to his father. Its Manhattan premiere, starring Plácido Domingo and Brightman, was filmed by the BBC and PBS for later broadcast. The LP eventually became UK's top selling classical album of the year and earned Brightman a Grammy nomination as Best New Classical Artist.
Brightman starred as Christine Daaé in Lloyd Webber's adaptation of "The Phantom of the Opera". The role of Christine was written specifically for her. Lloyd Webber refused to open "The Phantom of the Opera" on Broadway unless Brightman played Christine. Initially, the American Actors' Equity Association balked, because of their policy that any non-American performer must be an international star. Lloyd Webber had to cast an American in a leading role in his next West End musical before Equity would allow Brightman to appear (a promise he kept in casting "Aspects of Love"). In the end, it was a compromise that was successful. "Phantom" received $17 million in advance sales prior to opening night on 26 January 1988. The original cast album was the first in British musical history to enter the music charts at number one. Album sales now exceed forty million worldwide—the biggest selling cast album of all time—and has gone six times platinum in the United States, twice platinum in the UK, nine times platinum in Germany, four times platinum in the Netherlands, 11 times platinum in Korea and 31 times platinum in Taiwan. Despite the success both in London and on Broadway, Brightman received mostly negative reception from critics for her performance and was not nominated for Best Lead Actress in a Musical at the Tony Awards. While some reviewers praised Brightman for her singing, her acting was widely criticized.
After leaving "Phantom," she performed in a tour of Lloyd Webber's music throughout England, Canada and the United States, and performed Requiem in the Soviet Union. Studio recordings from this time include the single "Anything But Lonely" from "Aspects of Love" and two solo albums: the 1988 album "The Trees They Grow So High," a collection of folk songs accompanied by piano, and the 1989 album "The Songs That Got Away," a compilation of obscure musical theatre songs from shows by such composers as Irving Berlin and Stephen Sondheim. Brightman also sang the song "Make Believe" during the credits of the children's film "Granpa"; Howard Blake composed the music and wrote the lyrics.
She was a subject of the television programme "This Is Your Life" in 1989 when she was surprised by Michael Aspel at RAF Wittering in Cambridgeshire.
By 1990, Brightman and Lloyd Webber had separated. After their highly publicized divorce, Brightman played the lead in Lloyd Webber's "Aspects" in London opposite Michael Praed, before transferring to Broadway. Her subsequent solo album, "As I Came of Age," was an eclectic collection of folk-rock and musical theatre songs that Brightman herself chose.
1990s: Solo career.
In 1992, Brightman performed with José Carreras at the Barcelona Olympic Games singing the theme song "Amigos Para Siempre" ("Friends Forever"). Following the appearance, Brightman pursued solo recording, and inspired by the German band Enigma, she requested to work with one of its members, Frank Peterson. Their first release together was "Dive" (1993), a water-themed pop album that featured "Captain Nemo", a cover of a song by the Swedish electronica band Dive. The album received her first Gold award in Canada.
Brightman and Peterson's second collaboration yielded the pop rock album, "Fly" (1995) with the single "A Question of Honor"—a mélange of electronic, rock, classical strings and excerpts from the Alfredo Catalani opera "La Wally". The song and the video were introduced at the World Boxing Championship match between Germany's Henry Maske and Graciano Rocchigiani.
In 1997, Brightman released the album "Timeless/Time to Say Goodbye". It remains as Brightman's biggest-selling album. It went gold, platinum and/or multi-platinum in 21 countries, selling over 1.4 million copies in the US, and topped the "Billboard" Top Classical Crossover Albums chart in the US for 35 weeks. The lead single from the album, "Time to Say Goodbye", was the second song that Brightman debuted at the World Boxing Championship in Germany. This duet with tenor Andrea Bocelli became an international hit and sold more than 3 million copies in Germany. The album eventually sold over 12 million copies worldwide.
In March 1998, Brightman produced her first own PBS special, at the Royal Albert Hall. The same year, Brightman starred in "A Gala Christmas in Vienna" alongside Plácido Domingo, Helmut Lotti and Riccardo Cocciante singing traditional Christmas carols. On 7 April 1998 she was one of the guest stars in Andrew Lloyd Webber's 50th birthday celebration singing "Hosanna" with Dennis O'Neill, the title song of "The Phantom of the Opera" with Antonio Banderas, "All I Ask of You" with Michael Ball and "Music of the Night", both also from "Phantom of the Opera".
With the success of "Timeless", Brightman released her next album, "Eden" in 1998. She personally selected each song and convinced the Italian composer Ennio Morricone to let her set lyrics to one of his film compositions, "Gabriel's Oboe" from the film "The Mission" resulting in "Nella Fantasia". The album, unlike "Time to Say Goodbye", incorporated more pop music elements. Reviews were mixed – LAUNCHcast deemed "Eden" "deliriously sappy", while AllMusic called "Eden" "a winning combination". "Eden" reached No. 1 on the US "Billboard" Top Classical Crossover Albums chart and No. 65 on the "Billboard" 200 chart and was certified Gold in the United States.
2000–2004: Further international success.
In 2000, "La Luna" was released. For this album, Brightman chose songs drawing on pop, vintage jazz, and high opera, in homages to Dvořák, Beethoven and Billie Holiday. "La Luna" reached No. 1 on the US "Billboard" Top Internet Albums and peaked at No. 17 on the "Billboard" 200 chart, becoming Brightman's second highest-selling album in the United States with sales of 900,000 and reaching Gold certification. It became her biggest-selling album in Asia, with a quintuple platinum certification in Taiwan.
At her 2000 PBS La Luna concert, Brightman sang "There for Me" in a duet with an up-and-coming star, Josh Groban. At the end of 2001, "Billboard" magazine noted Brightman as the most important classical crossover artist from the United Kingdom.
In 2001, Brightman released "Classics", an anthology including highlights from three of Brightman's chart-topping releases along with seven new tracks; this was released worldwide except Europe. In the US the album peaked at No. 66 on the "Billboard" 200 chart and went Gold. In Canada it peaked at No. 9 and was certified Platinum; and in Japan, "Classics" became Brightman's most successful release at the time with 300,000 units sold and reaching Platinum status.
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.
The album peaked at No. 29 on the "Billboard" 200 chart, No. 1 on the "Billboard" Top Classical Crossover Albums chart, No. 1 on the Swedish Album Chart, and yielded