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50 things about Sarah Brightman, an English classical crossover soprano, actress, songwriter and dancer.
1. Sarah Brightman is an English classical crossover soprano, actress, songwriter and dancer.
2. Sarah Brightman has sung in many languages, including English, Spanish, French, Latin, German, Turkish, Italian, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese and Catalan.
3. Sarah Brightman began her career as a member of the dance troupe Hot Gossip and released several disco singles as a solo performer.
4. In 1981, she made her West End musical theatre debut in Cats and met composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, whom she married.
5. Sarah Brightman 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. The Original London Cast Album of the musical was released in CD format in 1987 and sold 40 million copies worldwide, making it the biggest-selling cast album of all time.
6. After retiring from the stage and divorcing Lloyd Webber, Brightman resumed her music career with former Enigma producer Frank Peterson, this time as a classical crossover artist.
7. Sarah Brightman is often credited as the creator of this genre and remains among the most prominent performers, with worldwide sales of more than 30 million records and 2 million DVDs, establishing herself as the world's best-selling soprano of all time.
8. Brightman's 1996 duet with the Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, "Time to Say Goodbye", topped 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 3 million copies. It subsequently became an international success selling 12 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time.
9. Sarah Brightman has now collected over 180 gold and platinum sales awards in 38 different countries.
10. In 2010 she was named by Billboard the 5th 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 that country.
11. Sarah Brightman is the first artist to have been invited twice to perform 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 a 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 4 billion people worldwide.
12. 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".
13. Since 2010, Brightman is Panasonic's global brand ambassador.
14. Apart from music, Brightman has begun a film career, making her debut in Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008), a rock opera-musical film directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, and in autumn 2011 and early 2012 Stephen Evans' "First Night", starring opposite Richard E. Grant.
15. Sarah Brightman is the world's richest female classical performer with a fortune of £36m (about US$56m).
16. In 2014, she began training for a journey to the International Space Station set for 2015.
17. In May 2015, she postponed the flight until further notice, citing personal reasons.
18. Sarah Brightman is the oldest of six children of businessman Grenville Geoffrey Brightman (1934-1992) and Paula (Hall) Brightman.
19. Her younger sisters are Nicola, Claudia and Amelia (aka Violet). She was raised in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England.
20. At the age of three she began taking dance and piano classes and went on to perform in local festivals and competitions.
21. At age 11, she successfully auditioned for the Arts Education School in Tring Park, a school specialising in performing arts.
22. 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).
23. 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.
24. Sarah 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".
25. In 1979, Brightman appeared on the soundtrack of the movie "The World Is Full of Married Men" and sang the song "Madam Hyde".
26. 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. In that year she left to play the title role in Charles Strouse's children's opera, Nightingale.
27. Enticed by a rave review, 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, 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 her.
28. 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.
29. Sarah 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.
30. 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.
31. Brightman sang the song "Make Believe" during the credits of the children's film "Grandpa;" Howard Blake composed the music and wrote the lyrics.
32. 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.
33. Her subsequent solo album, As I Came of Age, was an eclectic collection of folk-rock and musical theatre songs that Brightman herself chose.
34. In 1992, Brightman performed with José Carreras at the Barcelona Olympic Games singing the theme song "Amigos Para Siempre" ("Friends Forever") to a worldwide audience of 3 billion people.
35. 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 is considered Brightman's first success as a recording solo artist, receiving her first Gold award in Canada.
36. 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 U.S. alone, and topped the Billboard Top Classical Crossover Albums chart in the U.S. for 35 weeks.
37. 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 alone, became Germany's best-selling single, and was successful in numerous other countries; the album eventually sold over 12 million copies worldwide.
38. In March 1998, Brightman produced her first own PBS special, Sarah Brightman: In Concert at the Royal Albert Hall.
39. Sarah Brightman starred A Gala Christmas in Vienna alongside Plácido Domingo, Helmut Lottie and Riccardo Cocciante singing traditional Christmas carols.
40. On 7 April 1998 she was one of the guest stars in Andrew Lloyd Webber's 50th Birthday Celebration singing Hossanaa with Dennis O'Neill, Pie Jesu, Phantom of the Opera with Antonio Banderas, All I Ask of You with Michael Ball and Music of the Night.
41. With the success of Timeless, Brightman released her next album, Eden in 1998. She hand-selected each song and convinced the Academy Award-winning 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 the now classic piece "Nella Fantasia".
42. At her 2000 PBS La Luna concert, Brightman sang There for Me in a duet with an up-and-coming star, Josh Groban. The same year, Brightman sold more records than Elton John and the Rolling Stones, becoming the highest-selling and top-touring British artist in North America.
43. At the end of 2001, Billboard magazine noted Brightman as the most important classical crossover artist from the United Kingdom.
44. The albums Eden, La Luna and Harem were accompanied by live world 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".
45. In both 2000 and 2001, Brightman was among the top 10 most popular British performers in the U.S., with concert sales grossing $7.2 million from 34 shows in 2000 and over $5 million from 21 shows in 2001.
46. In early 2012, Brightman received the UNESCO Artist for Peace Award 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".
47. Sarah Brightman was appointed as Panasonic's global brand ambassador, and is the face of Panasonic's strategic partnership agreement with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre as she starred in their joint campaign, "The World Heritage Special," that was aired on the National Geographic Channel worldwide.
48. On 10 October 2012, Brightman hosted a press conference in Moscow announcing her intention to launch on a future orbital spaceflight mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in partnership with Space Adventures, Ltd., a private space experiences company.
49. On May 13, 2015, Brightman announced she had withdrawn from training, citing family reasons. With her backup, Satoshi Takamatsu, also withdrawing from the flight, Kazakh cosmonaut Aidyn Aimbetov replaces Brightman on Soyuz TMA-18M.
50. Brightman underwent vocal training first with Elizabeth Hawes, head of the Trinity Music College in London, and later with Ellen Faull of Juilliard.
Source: Wikipedia.org
