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Sarah Brightman Someone Else’s
Idol
Style Sunday Times 18 April 2004
Jessica Brinton
The biggest-selling Brit in the US charts in
2000 barely registers in her homeland.
So there she is,
standing on the stage as if on a desert cliff top, flowing tresses glinting,
silken robes billowing in the wind, arms lifted heavenward, soprano voice
making the trip through three octaves just a little too quickly for comfort,
and . . .
Lo! A techno beat starts up, and suddenly,
around the corner, come 10 dancing slave girls, their pneumatic bodies
barely clad in scraps of leather. Yes, it’s the Sarah Brightman show.
Now, it may come as something of a shock to
discover that Sarah Brightman still exists. But across the Atlantic, the bug-eyed diva is as hot as it gets. She has just completed a
46-date arena tour, and two weeks ago, the prestigious Hollywood Reporter
newspaper called her “Britney for grown-ups”. In 2000, Brightman
—
a former member of Hot
Gossip, ex-wife of Andrew Lloyd Webber, star of The Phantom of the Opera
—
was the highest-selling
UK artist in the United States. She sold more than Elton, more than the
Rolling Stones. The Americans call her “the angel of music”.
And it’s not just the Yanks. The Germans, the
Russians, the Norwegians, the Chinese, the Koreans, the Japanese, the
Taiwanese and the Australians all think that she is the most spiritual
performer since Mother Teresa. Over the next four months, Britain’s queen of
classical crossover will travel the globe performing a raunchy stage
spectacular, which she has named Harem
—
basically Phantom of the
Opera meets Cirque du Soleil with a bit of Gladiators thrown in. And in
Britain? Just one solitary date at Wembley, on May
5.
Poor Brightman: loved by
everyone but her own countrymen. The feeling we get when we think of her is
more than just a mild shiver of cringe. It’s
excruciating.
We rather wish she would go away and not come back for a while. She is our
Celine Dion.
The 43-year-old singer
—
known in Britain as
Sarah Dullwoman
—
has her own theories
about why she doesn’t register over here. “It’s
always been the way,” she sighs. “Europeans
just don’t understand me like the rest of the world does. I think it’s
because elsewhere, they appreciate the difference.”
Perhaps Brightman has a
point. For a Brit, looking at Brightman is like seeing yourself during your
worst-ever public humiliation, like walking in on your stepmother having sex
with your dad. Brightman’s problem is more than
not being trendy enough. She is a brutal
reminder of what can happen when one’s cool deserts one entirely. And yet,
and yet, you also can’t help admiring the lady. Okay, so you tremble at
the memory of her affair with Wayne
Sleep, or the sight of her wafting around Michael Crawford as he sang The
Music of the Night. You feel queasy at the thought of her and Lloyd Webber
in bed (still so
sickening, after all this
time, even if he did have, as she informed Graham Norton, a very big willy).
But someone who can get through all of that, survive despite the
mudslinging, and be Big In America — that has to be worth something. “You
do have to be fairly selfish when you have a gift,”
she has said. “You
can’t afford to let too many outside things get in the way.” Like style,
taste, or a decent hairdresser."
Brightman Has Taken The
Hair From Her Heyday And Extended It Again And Again, Just Like Her Career”
What the experts say
Her outfits
Wardrobe Mistress says:
“Everything about Brightman is a fantasy. Nothing about her seems real. Her
costumes are straight out of Blake’s 7. I think, in her mind, she is still
in Hot Gossip. She clearly hasn’t got over her I Fell in Love with a
Starship Trooper
*
moment. The
look would be a winner for fancy-dress parties, though, especially if you
were an older woman who felt like being a bit racy. It’s disco-trollop
chic.”
Her hair
Hair Bitch says: “It’s
opera hair, it’s phantom hair, it’s post-ironic hair. Sarah Brightman’s hair
is very funny, but the joke’s on us - yes, Brightman was doing curly
extensions and hairpieces long before anyone else. For that reason, I’ve
always seen her as a follicle pioneer. In the same way as Mamma Mia exalts
1970s kitsch — in that it is a tribute, is ridiculous and is packed out
every night - so does Sarah Brightman’s hair. She has taken hair from her
heyday and extended it again and again, just like her career. We are forced
to take her hair seriously and, as a result, we are forced to take her
singing as no longer something thin and frivolous, but something robust and
enduring, something that will never be cut off, curtailed, or go away. I
have a secret suspicion that, at night, she takes it all off, puts it on her
pillow next to her and kisses it goodnight. Some nights, she cuddles up to
it purringly; other nights, she struts a femme-fatale club scene where
nobody recognises her, because she has no hair.”
Her voice
The Las Vegas
Review-Journal says: “Brightman is the real deal, vocally. Her sound has a
light, childlike quality.” But a British classical music insider says: “She
isn’t the real thing. She’s a musical singer. And she isn’t Kiri, is she?”
Her fans
Jeff Waters, Baltimore,
says: “Sarah, you have touched the hearts of so many people. Through the
English classic songs of The Trees They Grow So High, to the pop group Hot
Gossip, to the musical Cats, to the great Phantom of the Opera, to the pop
songs of Dive, to the upbeat songs of Fly, and to the beautiful songs of
Timeless, you have stuck through it. I think we all wish we could give you
at least a little portion back from what you’ve given to us to enjoy.” Jeff,
you can have more than a portion.
Webmeister comment
- I think this writer has no idea what Sarah Brightman or her fans are about
whatsoever. In my opinion an unprofessional and rather silly article.
*
Also has no idea of the name
of Sarah's first single
! |
Sarah
Brightman's favourite red wine and cocktails 02/05/2008 The Telegraph
Jonathan Ray 
of the dance band Hot Gossip in the mid-1970s, Sarah ascended to superstar
status with her role as Christine Daaé in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of
the Opera. 
brings viewers a side of the performer they have never seen before with the
premiere of Bravo Profiles: Sarah Brightman at 10:00PM/ET. Bravo Profiles
traces Brightman's rise to the top of classical crossover charts from her
beginnings as a ballet dancer, pop disco queen and a musical theater icon.
At age 40, the only character Sarah is playing is herself -- a
world-renowned artist and producer. Bravo Profiles captures the women behind
the voice -- funny, irreverent, ambitious, occasionally self-deprecating,
and she speaks openly about the controversies that have surrounded her and
her career, including her past as Andrew Lloyd Webber's wife and muse.
albums in the U.S. alone. Her latest release La Luna is well on its way to
becoming a Platinum record, and Brightman has joined the ranks of Sting and
Elton John as one of the top British artists touring in the U.S. Bravo
Profiles takes viewers with Sarah into the recording studio to get a first
hand look at the creative process at work -- producing and recording La
Luna, making the music video for her first single from the album, and on
tour to experience a typical day as it leads up to that night's performance
of the visual extravaganza that Brightman, herself, had a hand in creating.
As Sarah states, "When I'm on tour and it's working, I'm at my happiest."
Sarah's
still a bright star 
