Space Opera

Sarah swag:
the obligatory program, tickets and a signed lithograph

If Sting is a god, then Sarah Brightman is a goddess. She continually surpasses mortal expectation and has made me believe in heaven.

Ter and I saw her perform on the space-themed “Dreamchaser” tour on Thursday and we are still reeling. I’m unsure where to begin, so I’ll start with the obvious: the voice. Be it known here and now that I do not appreciate opera at all, especially the eardrum-shredding shrill of a soprano … yet Sarah is most definitely a soprano. She hits (and holds, by the gods) notes that don’t even exist, but she does it with a crystal purity that sends my spine into paroxysms of pleasure rather than spasms of angst against the flight instinct. By the same token, she can tap into the phenomenal power required to push out the richer, more resonant notes of pieces like “Nessun Dorma” or “Figlio Perduto” and make them sound like silk.

She’s considered to be a classical crossover artist. Classically trained, she can sing pretty much anything. She was the original Christine Daaé in “Phantom of the Opera”, the title track of which is a signature piece of her show. I love it best of all, but I think the climactic high note makes Ter wince. Sarah’s style is perfectly suited to performing some of the best pumped-up operatic chestnuts I’ve ever encountered, a hybrid of classical, pop, and New Age that never fails to send me straight into Right Brain. We started collecting her albums a few years ago – Ter was unconsciously aware of her for years previous, but I first paid serious attention when streaming the New Age vocal channel at www.sky.fm; almost daily a piece called “In Paradisum” was played and the vocal on it sucked me out of my chair and into an alternate reality ablaze with life and colour. It turned out to be Sarah Brightman. My office tea fairy and good buddy, Treena, was way ahead of the curve and already a fan; she had most of Sarah’s albums and was happy to lend me “Eden”, which opens with “In Paradisum”. Our CD library grew like a hothouse flower after that, and Sarah’s concert DVDs will soon outnumber those in our Def Leppard collection.

Then there’s the performance artist. Everything she does is on a grand—dare I say operatic?— scale. Her numerous costumes are glamorous – something like eight changes last week – and the light show on this tour is nothing short of spectacular. Her soaring voice, the swelling music, and the increasingly intense light flooding the arena were too much for some folks, I guess, but not for me. I wanted to be overwhelmed, to be swept away by the complete sensory experience, and boy, did she deliver.

She opened with “Angel”, the first single off her new album, and when the first heartbeat struck, I was gone. She doesn’t even have to form words; she can simply peal like a pristine silver bell and I will burst into tears. Gone. Done. Wrecked. Mortified. But really, when you’re sitting in the dark and everyone else is caught in the same spell, no one notices that you’re sniffling out loud. So I gave up and let the tears roll unhindered as the show flowed from one magical piece to another. Once in a while I’d glance at Ter, whose eyes were incandescent every time I looked. We’d nudge each other on occasion, thrilled at the opening notes of a particular favourite, but for the most part, we were content to be completely blown away. I actually forgot to breathe at times and forgot to blink at others. Mostly, I was road kill. Thoroughly mesmerized. And so deeply, profoundly grateful to be in the presence of such precise and powerful talent. This woman is clearly following her bliss and I was privileged to share a tiny part it with her.

When this tour is done, she’ll be in training to become an astronaut. She’s going to the international space station, a childhood dream of hers being to visit the stars. I hope she sings when she’s there. If ever a voice was meant to be heard in space, it belongs to Sarah Brightman.

* * *

I’ve inserted links to each of the songs underlined in this post – if you haven’t heard her sing and want a sample, click on any of the titles and close your eyes. Naturally, she won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but she figures prominently in my creative process and for that I am eternally grateful.