Sarah Brightman is the world's best-selling soprano and it's no wonder. The singer's notable three-octave range dances, soars and lifts us onto a higher plane, whether she's singing opera or show tunes. Back in the 1990s she famously pioneered classical-crossover - a term she now loathes. It was a ground-breaking melding of musical genres which she says at the time was not a calculated thing at all, but "instinctive". It catapulted her to the top of the charts and changed the way we think about popular music.
Sarah has always been an innovator, learning from other cultures and finding a unique path away from the status quo. As she talks to me from her UK home, her passion and energy for, well, everything, is just as electric as ever. This is a woman who clearly loves her day job, constantly spinning in a creative bubble, and while she may have regrets - which we'll come to - she still gets a powerful kick out of seizing the day and challenging convention.
She started performing almost 60 years ago, a four-year-old tot dancing and singing her heart out, a gene inherited from her mother, Paula. But young Sarah took it to a whole new level.
"My mother had a ballet school for young children and just before I was born she got a job as a dancer in London. She did it for a time and when I came along, it became more of a part-time job and she and my father would take it in turns to look after me. She quickly realised that I was very talented musically. I could move beautifully. My mother said I sang at an early age, and I could play the piano; I just immediately knew what to do.
"She started putting me in for dancing and singing competitions from four years old. I won most of everything that I did, I was just one of those kids, and I would be up at half past four in the morning practising before school. Then when I came back, I would go to stage, tap, ballet and singing classes. My life was already all about the arts."
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة April 2024 من Australian Women’s Weekly NZ.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة April 2024 من Australian Women’s Weekly NZ.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
PRETTY WOMAN
Dial up the joy with a mood-boosting self-care session done in the privacy of your own home. It’s a blissful way to banish the winter blues.
Hitting a nerve
Regulating the vagus nerve with its links to depression, anxiety, arthritis and diabetes could aid physical and mental wellbeing.
The unseen Rovals
Candid, behind the scenes and neverbefore-seen images of the royal family have been released for a new exhibition.
Great read
In novels and life - there's power in the words left unsaid.
Winter dinner winners
Looking for some thrifty inspiration for weeknight dinners? Try our tasty line-up of budget-concious recipes that are bound to please everyone at the table.
Winter baking with apples and pears
Celebrate the season of apples and pears with these sweet bakes that will keep the cold weather blues away.
The wines and lines mums
Once only associated with glamorous A-listers, cocaine is now prevalent with the soccer-mum set - as likely to be imbibed at a school fundraiser as a nightclub. The Weekly looks inside this illegal, addictive, rising trend.
Former ballerina'sBATTLE with BODY IMAGE
Auckland author Sacha Jones reveals how dancing led her to develop an eating disorder and why she's now on a mission to educate other women.
MEET RUSSIA'S BRAVEST WOMEN
When Alexei Navalny died in a brutal Arctic prison, Vladimir Putin thought he had triumphed over his most formidable opponent. Until three courageous women - Alexei's mother, wife and daughter - took up his fight for freedom.
IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO START
Responsible for keeping the likes of Jane Fonda and Jamie Lee Curtis in shape, Malin Svensson is on a mission to motivate those in midlife to move more.