Brightman’S Popularity Spans Globe ‘Phantom’S’ Original Christine Known For Elaborate Concerts
Sarah Brightman doesn’t fit too snugly into most of America’s narrowly defined radio formats.
How many classical/crossover/pop/opera/musical theater radio stations do you listen to?
So you may have a little trouble placing her, despite the fact that she is, by any measure, one of the most popular singing stars in the world.
Brightman, a 40-year-old English nightingale, is an enormous international force, and has been ever since she originated the role of Christine in “The Phantom of the Opera” in 1988. She became even more famous because of her taste in husbands at the time: Andrew Lloyd Webber himself.
She and Lloyd Webber split in 1990. Now, her immense popularity in Europe, Australia and, yes, America is based on her shimmering, ethereal albums, which have sold more than 5 million copies worldwide in the past three years.
Brightman’s CDs and her PBS specials, one of which aired two Saturdays ago on KSPS-7, have given her a burgeoning reputation far from the United Kingdom and Germany, to name two particularly Brightman-crazy countries.
Her 1997 album, “Time to Say Goodbye,” was No. 1 on the Billboard classical crossover chart for an amazing 35 weeks. Her 1999 album, “Eden,” also hit No. 1 on that chart. Now she has a luminous new album, “La Luna,” which gave a name to this North American tour, “The La Luna Tour.”
If it’s anything like her last tour, it should be an event. Richard Harrison of the Washington Post called her last tour “a breathtaking production” and “the most memorable concert of the year.”
Brightman brings her own band, and has also hired a 17-piece orchestral contingent made up of Spokane Symphony performers. The Spokane Symphony Chorale will provide choral accompaniment.
It was quite a coup for the Spokane Arena to snag this show, considering that most of the 40 North American dates are in much larger markets (she did Madison Square Garden in New York last month and just finished two shows in Los Angeles).
Brightman does not give publicity interviews (the mark of a truly big star), but she did provide some packaged quotes about her “La Luna” tour. For instance, she said that she strives to give her concerts a visual, theatrical feel.
“When I was very young, artists were really mixing, quite naturally, classical and rock,” she said. “When you look at the concerts that were going out at that time, like Pink Floyd, they were visually amazing. All my ideas come from that somewhat. I do the same kind of thing, with a theme and a visual aspect.”
The theme of “La Luna” is, naturally enough, the moon. Some of the songs have obvious lunar connections, such as the title piece by Dvorak. Others, such as Paul Simon’s “Scarborough Fair,” Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade of Pale” and a Beethoven-based piece called “Figlio Perduto,” are connected to the moon only by feel.
“The theme gave me the feeling for the type of songs,” said Brightman. “I think when you listen to a lot of the songs, they’re very magical, romantic and mystical. They are a mixture between the ancient and the very contemporary, and when you think of those feelings you think of space, space travel, the moon, you think of the planet. The album is a kind of mixture of all that for me.”
She’ll do plenty of her “La Luna” material, but you can also expect her to perform some of the Andrew Lloyd Webber songs she helped make famous. Before “Phantom,” she was one of the cats in “Cats.”
Even before that, she made her London theatrical debut at age 13 in something called “I and Albert.” She had a U.K. pop hit at age 18 with “I Lost My Heart to the Starship Troopers.”
Starship troopers? Maybe that fits with the lunar theme, but she has gone way beyond that type of singing. With her Beethoven-meets-Enya style, she makes the kind of music that the pop charts can’t handle.
This sidebar appeared with the story: Sarah Brightman Wednesday, 7:30 p.m., at the Star Theatre at the Spokane Arena. Tickets are $49 and $34, through G&B (325-SEAT, 1-800-325-SEAT or www.ticketswest.com).