Sorry to offend your refined cultural aesthetic, but I really enjoy Sarah Brightman–whether she’s singing in Phantom or with Andrea on her latest CD, “Time to Say Goodbye.”
So why the hell does she receive such contempt from critics? Merely mention her name and they start sneering.
What’s the problem here? Is it her commercial success? Her looks? Her association with Andrew Lloyd Weber?
I’ve heard some critics attack her for having a voice that isn’t fully operatically developed. SO WHAT? She isn’t an opera singer. But she still has a gorgeous voice.
I can’t stand her because she sings Andrew Lloyd Weber crap - which to me sounds like one continuous, tedious, mono-tonal groan that seems to be repeated ad nausem, in one horrible musical after another, now and forever.
She actually slept with that hideously ugly hack of a composer. Take “Phantom”: hideously deformed composer casts a spell on a young ingenue. Autobiographical show, anyome?
I kind of feel bad for her, but she owes her career to that monobrowed plagiarist.
(An aside: a couple of years ago, I read an article about Andrew Lloyd Webber putting writing new shows on hold because he “had no new ideas.” The critic wrote: "And has that ever stopped him before? :D)
I can’t hear her without shuddering because she sings such hollow horrible pap as if it’s high opera: she takes herself so fucking seriously and she’s a hack.
She has no artisitic sense whatsoever: all technique, no art.
Comparisons to “high opera”? Gimme a break, lissener!
Most operatic lyrics–at least those from Italian opera–are sophomoric dreck unworthy of a Hallmark card. (Note: “most” not all.) There’s precious little sophistication, despite the great production values. We’re not talking Shakespeare. Indeed, many of these operas have the same “hollow” splashiness that people today attack Weber for.
BTW, would you rather she take herself un-seriously? This ain’t the Improv.
Sheer snobbery is her major problem. And a lack of lightness.
Snobbery on the part of the critics, because of her association with Webber.
ALW is not evil, just successful. I do not care for many of his works, but he displays a talent for appealing melodies, and a taste that fits the audience very well. Not really a crime.
Intriguing that people who are proud of their love of Abba, will join the pack whinging about ALW. I consider the two are fairly equally matched, and I enjoy them both moderately, at times.
And also, since I am not particularly attractive, I find it most unpleasant and distasteful to hear people moaning on about ALW’s looks. I assume scott evil is as attractive as Lucifer, but beware young feller me lad, the years fly by, and one day you will find you too feel vulnerable when poor physical appearance is crowed over. You learn to be kind as you grow older. Sometimes.
And the lack of lightness?
She has been frequently presented in performance with enormous seriousness and reverence, so much so that it seems reasonable to assume she actually shares that sense of self-importance.
Pompousness in any artist can be subtly irritating to their audience, and she’s never mainfested the kind of sincerity in her playfulness that can enchant.
I’d like to sing as well as her, although not as high.
For those of us of a UK persuasion (I hope to God this didn’t travel past our shores), the reason she’s not taken too seriously by some over here is one of her first forays into pop music, the uniquely horrible POS called : " I lost my heart to a Starship Trooper".
I’d agree with ** tsunamisurfer** that success, as measured by approval of the music critics, has escaped her primarily because of non-musical reasons. Aside from the ALW bangin’-her-from-behind imagery (which we could all do without), she herself doesn’t come across well in interview. I’d guess she’s also derided by association.
Sometimes a touch aloof, certainly precious and generally not quite of this world. Whether by choice or by force of nature, she doesn’t play the self-publicity game well.
As for artistic ability and integrity, you pays yer money and yer makes yer choice.
Chill, dude, whattidyou, give birth to her? Lower the hackles. Who was talking about lyrics? I was talking about music. (Who goes to an opera for the lyrics, anyway?)
Um, no; only that she doesn’t take herself so horribly overly melodramatically bad-drama-student seriously.
i like her, but then i like ALW too. infact i like most forms of opera… im not picky. most english people i know either like her or dont really care. the press hate her, but then the press hates almost everyone so that should come as no surprise.
