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Brightman was born in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire to Paula and Granville
Brightman, the oldest of six children. Her ambition to be an artist was apparent
from an early age: she took ballet lessons starting from the age of three and
was an excellent student. At the age of eleven she attended a boarding school
for stage, where she remained despite the fact that she disliked the
institution. Brightman auditioned for London's Royal Ballet a few years later
but was rejected.
At age sixteen, in 1976, Brightman joined the dance group Pan's People. She
later went on to lead Hot Gossip, a mixed dance act who appeared regularly on
The Kenny Everett Video Show. The group, whis was noticeably more 'raunchy' than
Pan's People, had a chart-topping disco hit in 1978 with "I Lost My Heart To A
Starship Trooper", wherein she first discovered her vocal talents. Brightman
released several more disco singles in subsequent years, but none became as
prominent as "Starship Trooper," as the song is also called.
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. At the time, Brightman was married to another Andrew: one
Andrew Graham Stewart, a music manager. Lloyd Webber divorced his first wife,
Sarah Hugill, to marry Brightman in 1984. She went on to star in a number of his
musicals, including Song and Dance and Requiem.
Brightman achieved greater success with her starring role as Christine Daaé in
Lloyd Webber's adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera. Lloyd Webber refused to
open The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway unless Brightman originated the role
of Christine, which he had written specifically for her. 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). However, the two divorced amicably in
1990, effectively ending Brightman's stage career.
Brightman decided to pursue a solo career in Los Angeles. Inspired by the recent
success of German band Enigma, she requested to work with someone from the group
and traveled to Germany in 1991 to meet her future producer and boyfriend, Frank
Peterson. Their first collaboration on a major label release (with A&M Records)
was Dive (1993), a pop album with a loose water theme that featured the hit
'Captain Nemo' (a cover of a song by the Swedish electronica band Dive).
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 was introduced at the World Boxing Championship match between Germany's
Henry Maske and Graciano Rocchigiani and featured a mix of dance music, rock
elements, classical strings, and Brightman's operatic vocals from the opera
piece "La Wally".
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, became the largest-selling
single in that country to date, and was also a bestseller in numerous other
countries. The album eventually sold more than 5 million copies world wide. No
doubt due to the song's success, a 1996 re-issue of Fly contained this song as
the first track.
Timeless (1997--also known as Time To Say Goodbye) contained "Time to Say
Goodbye" and other classically inspired tracks such as "Just Show Me How To Love
You" (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 by the Gipsy Kings.
Subsequent albums included Eden (1998) and La Luna (2000), both in the classical
crossover genre, a field she is largely credited for developing. Reviews were
mixed - LAUNCHcast deemed Eden "deliriously sappy", while All Music Guide called
Eden "a winning combination" and La Luna "a solid, stirring collection". 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.
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 were taken from her previous efforts. Reviews were
somewhat better: Entertainment Weekly, although calling Brightman a "stronger
song stylist than a singer", gave the album a grade of B-.
Her 2003 album Harem represented another departure: a Middle Eastern-themed
dance album that took the classical-crossover influences she had begun to work
with on previous releases to epic new heights. On this album, Brightman
collaborated with artists such as Ofra Haza and Iraqi singer Kazem al-Saher. It
peaked at #29 on the Billboard 200 charts, #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 became a second Top-10 hit
on this chart.
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." She is currently
working on a new album that is expected to be released some time in 2007.
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