Quelle: ANGEL RECORDS DVD - The Making of Harem Diese Infoseite ist zur Zeit leider nur in der englischen Version verfügbar!

The voice sparkles, as always, like sunlight casting a spell. The colors dazzle, the pulse is ravishing, and the soundscape it explores is rich and fabulous in its variety. Sarah Brightman has listened to her imagination, shared it with an extraordinary gallery of collaborators, and together they have created Harem, a sensuous new album from Angel Records spun out of the myth and the music of the Middle East of legend. Brightman is a worldwide phenomenon. Her blockbuster albums - Dive, Time to Say Goodbye, Eden, La Luna and Sarah Brightman: Classics - have sold more than 15 million copies worldwide, and her dramatic and alluring concert performances have thrilled live audiences and hundreds of millions of TV viewers worldwide. Harem might be Brightman's most unique and personally creative albums yet, a potent blend of the musical textures of a timeless world and the dance rhythms of the new millennium. It began as a feeling for Sarah Brightman. "I wanted to record an album with a Middle Eastern feel. It just felt like the right way to go, just a feeling at first, which is how I begin all my albums." "Harem means 'forbidden place' in Arabic," she adds, "I have always loved that whole Arabian Nights feeling. Much of what we have created derives from my childhood reading. I was a C.S. Lewis fan. I like the idea of parallel worlds, faraway lands, mystery - I've traveled a huge amount over the years which has influenced me immensely." Along with the influence of legend and myth, Brightman was just as excited by the here-and-now reality of the vibrant music that pours out of the Middle East - the sensuous dance rhythms, the incomparable range of instrumental sounds and the bold, soaring melodies. Harem continues an important creative collaboration that has shaped Brightman's previous albums, all produced by Frank Peterson, who co-produced Enigma's first multi-platinum hit. Her solo recordings are a testament to the new worlds Brightman wanted to explore when she left her successful career in musical theater, where she starred in Cats and became virtually synonymous with the role of Christine in Andrew Lioyd Webber's phenomenon, The Phantom of the Opera. With producer Peterson, Brightman has crafted for Harem a mesmerizing new repertoire of music familiar and unusual, new and old, that showcases her own songwriting talents. Jaz Coleman (ex-Killing Joke) created the orchestrations in sumptuous layers of instrumental sound both Eastern and Western. The album features orchestral musicians from as far apart as Prague and Cairo, as well as virtuoso instrumentalists from all over the world. Also joining Brightman are classical violin superstar Nigel Kennedy and singer Kadim Al Sahir, one of the Middle East's most important and innovative new stars, as well as Natasha Atlas, Ofra Haza and Shweta Shetty. The title track of Harem dramatizes the scope and imagination of the album. It is an adaptation of "Cancao do Mar," a classic from Portugal's fado tradition. Brightman and producer Frank Peterson have written new lyrics for the melody, in which the singer hears a connection between Middle Eastern sounds and the ancient inspirations of fado. Brightman says, "I've loved this song for ages. In our version, I wanted it to have a contemporary, Arabian Nights feel-love, the desert, passion and fire but also with a dance feeling." The luminous "The War Is Over" - a song that embraces an end to the conflicts in love - eloquently brings Sarah Brightman together with the Iraqi singer Kadim Al Sahir, as wellas the classical violin virtuoso Kennedy. "We asked Kadim to do this song with me because we knew of his voice," Brightman says. "When he came into the studio, we didn't know what he would do. I told him, 'Just do anything, feel like you're flying over the melody.' So he just started, and it was beautiful. That was the take we used." "When I wrote 'Until the End of Time'" Brightman says, "I wanted the feeling of soaring strings and fantasy lyrics, I wanted to create that sense of space, the freedom of journeying. I like that big cinematic feel in this context." "Guéri de Toi/Free" lends Harem the French connection Brightman wanted it to have. The song was actually written in German, about the cathartic end of a love affair. The lyrics were, to Brightman "amazing, but it was very difficult to make them fit in English." A French translation of the English version helped solve the problem, and the gentle commentary of Kennedy's violin gives the track an even greater intensity. Sarah Brightman's imagination drives a new sound for some classic hits - ranging from "What a Wonderful World" and "Stranger in Paradise" - allbathed in the Eastern atmosphere that has inspired her. "I've always been known for interpreting music, beautiful music that I really like," she says. "As I go along, I realize that certain pieces fit into different areas at certain times. I listened to many classical pieces by Russian composers that have the feel of the East in them. 'Stranger in Paradise' speaks for itself. Not only does it have a beautiful melody by Borodin, but the song was also created for the musical Kismet, which evokes the kind of fantasy that we wanted to create. The words of 'What a Wonderful World' were so colorful, and I loved the way the chords moved - I just had to do it." On Harem, "Stranger in Paradise" circles back to Borodin's voluptuous Polovetsian Dances for its rich orchestral textures, cradling Brightman's crystalline singing. "What a Wonderful World" is an audacious reinvention of a well-traveled pop feel-good anthem - edgier this time, tinged with melancholy. Brightman even reaches into the world of grand opera, spiriting away the melody of Puccini's "Un bel di" from Madama Butterfly to spark "It's a Beautiful Day." "The melody has this feeling of space, of mystery, of times gone by," Brightman says, "and I felt that the Asian quality Puccini created works in This new sound." "The Journey Home" comes from Indian film composer A. R. Rahman's hit West End Bollywood musical Bombay Dreams, produced in London by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It was Lloyd Webber who brought the song to Brightman's attention. "I've been in love with Indian films, and I've known Rahman's music for a long time. When I heard the song I really, really liked it. It has a different interpretation here than in the musical, but it has the right feel." The right feel - one of space and wonderment and great calm - inspires the shimmering "Beautiful." Brightman says, "When you can sit in open spaces and have 'inside' thoughts...that's what this song reminded me of. It has space in it." The touching "What You Never Know" is the work of songwriter Stephan Moccio who wrote "A New Day Has Come," the title song for Celine Dion's most recent album. Brightman says that her first meeting with him sparked the collaboration." It was wonderful," she says. "He even knew the key I sound best in. He understood about simplicity, and I told him, 'I don't want you to have barriers - write something for me that you really feel.' This song has that 'inside' feeling. I heard it immediately." "You Take My Breath Away" evolved from a track Brightman recorded some time ago, and the concept of Harem brought it into a sharper focus. "We wrote it about India," Brightman recalls, adding, "it dawned on us that it conceptually fit this album. It is the power of imagination, I suppose, in the way painters work. The more you get into something, the more emerges. That's how I work." The lyrics of "Mysterious Days" lend Harem a hipper, more modern sensibility in its evocation of American expatriates in Marrakech - Paul Bowles, in particular, and The Sheltering Sky. "It talks about the Casbah, working in the attic, the mix of the city and the Americans working there, and it has a dance aspect to it as well," Brightman says. Sarah Brightman's worldwide success has been unique. Her platinum breakthrough - 1997's Time To Say Goodbye - topped the Billboard Classical Crossover chart in the U.S. for a staggering 35 weeks, sold three million copies worldwide and went gold or platinum in 21 countries. The title track, a duet with Andrea Bocelli, sold five million copies worldwide and stands as the biggest selling single in German history. She followed that up with her 1999 release Eden, which hit #1 on Billboard's Classical Crossover chart (spending a total of 51 weeks on the chart), quickly went gold in the U.S. and sold two million copies worldwide. Over 250,000 people ultimately saw Sarah Brightman's successful 60- city Eden worldwide tour, 34 of which were in the US. Even greater success greeted the release of La Luna, which debuted in the top 20 on Billboard's Top 200 Pop chart - Brightman's highest chart debut - and is rapidly approaching platinum certification. The album's breakout single, the singer's version of Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale," inspired a dance mix that became an international hit. It went to No.1 on Dance Music Authority's Hi-NRG chart, debut in the top five on Billboard's Maxi Single chart and quickly soared on Billboard's Club Play Chart. Brightman's La Luna concert tour topped anything she had previously done, with more than 80 shows playing to live audiences totaling audiences of over 500,000 and garnering rave reviews: "Brightman is a truer diva in the traditional sense than any of the pop vocal acrobats who have been so dubbed - Mariah, Whitney, Celine, et al. While she has a powerful voice, she never pushes or overreaches; Brightman more often compels and even soothes to enchant with an elegant mystery."    -     Hollywood Reporter "A breathtaking production ... the most memorable concert of the year."    -     Washington Post "They say a star must be a study in contradictions, someone mysterious and difficult to define. If that's the case, Sarah Brightman strongly qualifies. She is a delicate waif one minute, operatic diva the next. She offers her own form of rock - soprano belting - switches to classical and then expertly combines all her identities. Through transitions from sweetheart to seductress, she maintains a majestic distance, like a queen dispensing generous gifts to her adoring subjects."    -     Daily Variety "The petite singer with the glorious voice ... it was the crystalline purity of her voice that carried Brightman's 90-minute show."    -     New York Post "She's forged a very personal musical image of her own in the crossover market, embracing rock, new age and techno while continuing to improve her operatic range."    -     Denver Post Filmed for a PBS TV special, Sarah Brightman: One Night in Eden repeated the success of 1998's "Live at the Royal Albert Hall." Both ruled the airwaves during pledge drives and rank among the most successful pledge events to date. One Night in Eden was released as a home video with bonus footage on both VHS and DVD in October 1999 and it too (like all that Sarah seemingly touches) went gold. Sarah Brightman will be touring Harem this fall in the U.S.

ANGEL RECORDS - April 2003