This is the transcription of a tv interview Sarah did in Brazil in November/2001, for a tv program called ALMANAQUE, for Globonews tv.
 

 Reporter: You are famous for doing this mixture of classical and popular music. You've been getting better and finding your own style. How would you define your style? Classical, pop, which way are you going more?

Sarah Brightman: Music to me has different styles, it's written in different times.  But I've never liked to divide it, saying, “This is pop, this is classical.”  Music, for me, it's whole.  And so, I actually find it difficult to define what it is that I do.   I think... probably... when I was brought up... I was brought up in the 60's and... of course, at that time music was being experimented with, there was a huge sense of revolution there.  And I think people were mixing several styles because they were allowed to it.  This was the thing to do, and they were allowed to experiment.  So, for me, having being brought up in this way, I don't think,  “ok, I mix a piece of pop music and classic, do this and that”.  It's very organic for me to do whatever it is I am doing.  And if people want to put it into a drawer, describing what it is exactly, well...  that's fine.  But I actually find that difficult.

R: Which is the style that you are looking for more now, that you are searching and researching more?

SB: I think that I am very open about music, to the new things that are coming in. Obviously, a lot of the new things come from the old, so... alongside to the traditional training that I always had since I was young - and if you want, call it the classical training - I am always taking what is coming in now.  So, I cannot actually tell you, because everything is very mixed...  the route that I take. I am inspired all the time by many things around me... I like arts, I like nature, I like people...  I am interested in what happens in the world generally, although I am not particularly knowledgeable about it, I may take everything.  Sometimes I may base a piece of music that I want to do, or an idea that might come, on a colour, for example.  That's how it might start.  That colour might bring an emotion which therefore could bring music into my brain and an idea. It could be many things, there's no particular pattern.

R: I've read that you belonged to, in the beginning, a pop group called Hot Gossip...

SB: Yes, I did, and a very provocative one it was too.  Well, I've been trained as a classical ballet dancer and I was 17 years of age.  I just came out of the school and out of my training. And I was, I suppose, headhunted by these people that work on television, and that put together this dance group they called Hot Gossip.   The girls they wanted, they had to be sort of.... very petite, sort of attractive, but they also had to have very amazing ballet training as well, which I just had, because the choreography that they were doing was very complicated and complex.  But at that same time, we had a very innovative director, who started a very fast editing and fast cutting on television.  So, what we see today, does come from that particular time.

R: I was thinking about the Spice Girls...

SB: That's right, we did it a long time ago...

R: When was it?

SB:  It must have been about 1978, 1979, the glamour disco era, then punk came in after that. So, I was sort of thrown into a group...   they made it start as very provocative, the clothes that we wore, the attitude that we had. After that group I had my first record, that was called "I Lost My Heart To a Starship Trooper".  It was pop trash at that time, but it was great fun!

R: And what were your profits from this experience that you still have now in your career?

SB: That you have to pay your tax (she laughs a lot).  Because I didn't know what tax was at that time, and I was earning a lot of money and I blew it all on cars, and things you do when you are young, and baby popstar, and the tax man came and he said, "I want some money", and I didn't have any left, so... That's what I learned from this experience, and that's probably all that I learned...

R: You also had a great experience in theatre. You did The Phantom of the Opera and Cats. Your character in Cats was very important to the beginning of your career...

SB After having a very quick pop career, as a teenager, I knew I had to get back to some solidity, to something that was solid, and I understood about it because I’ve trained in that area. I decided to go for auditions for Cats, and I got it. That was the beginning of my career in theatre.  I think the roles that I played... I mean... for example, Christine in The Phantom of the Opera.... in fact, I was, obviously, an inspiration to Andrew Lloyd Webber.  I inspired him for some reason at that time and he wrote the pieces for me.  And the part that I played in Cats was a role for a dancer. But because he realized what kind of voice that I had, he was inspired to write certain pieces in Cats. It's a nice knowledge to know that you inspired something that will go on and on and on for probably many years.

R: And then there was Germany in your life, when you decided to put some things behind and have a new start. You were very brave for that...

SB: Yes...

R: You had a very solid career in so many...

SB: ...areas....

R: ...then you decided to start over. Why? And what did you decide to leave behind and what were you searching?

SB: I think that because I had an eight-year career in Lloyd Webber musicals... had been his wife, had been his muse, etc, etc... I think in my own country, because there was so much publicity surrounding us at that time... we were very famous...  when we burped, probably it was in the news... we couldn't move…  I think in a way I was... how can I say...  As a personality I was burnt out there, I couldn't move anymore in my own country as an artist, I couldn't be creative in another way, no one would let me, because they always remembered me for those things. So, therefore, I had to get out, I had to move for another country, I had to start again with a new career. I've always wanted to work on the classical music side of my voice. I had time to actually work on this. I went to Germany and Italy and worked with coaches there on new repertory that I never had the chance to work before, because I had been on the theatre. And it was difficult to do because there were offers coming from all over the world to do musicals in Australia, Japan, wherever... And I turned everything down. What I did was a good thing because not only I had time to work with my voice, to find out possibilities to where it could go, but I also started working with my producer, Frank Peterson, who was in projects as Enigma and such, and was very successful in his own right. We started working together in the studio, and also different types of music and we were experimenting. We had time to do all of these. And so, all of these kind of things came together...  what I was working, what he was working on, to actually, providing the career that I have now. 

R: Where do you live now?

SB: Difficult to answer this question, because... my family live in Spain, I have a home in Italy, and in England, and also in Miami. I have an apartment in London because, obviously, my roots are there, so...  And a boyfriend in Germany. So I am always doing this all the time (she makes a gesture, meaning something like travelling a lot).

R: And you also travel a lot. The last four years were very intensive for you. Do you get along well with this idea of being like gypsy, always travelling?  Do you like this? Or when you are on vacations you don't like to travel at all, you just like to stay at home, open your drawers, look at your furniture, and relax?

SB: When I get back to what I would call home for that particular moment, I like it for a week.  After one week I think,  “Oh, where's the suitcase, let me start moving.”  So, I think I do have some gypsy blood in me, because I need to be on move. I like to do things. I like to come to places like this (she shows the place, the gardens) and see all this gorgeous forest and this place.  I mean, there is so much to see and so much to do, I think I would be bored just staying in one place.

R: You had success that stayed for 100 weeks on the top of the Billboard Classics.  And you said at a time that you were very afraid of the media chasing you. How do you deal with this now?

SB: To tell you the truth, I don't really think about it too much. As a normal person walking on the streets, I tend to look like anybody. I have no make-up on, I travel on tubes, on taxis... I think that I am at a place in my career when I have a certain amount of respect, because I've been doing this for so long now. So therefore, I don’t generally get the feeling of...  how can I say... non-respect in any way. So, actually, there's not that "teen star” thing of fame, because I am an older person, so...

R: But you are so young...

SB: You know, I am not Britney's age...

R: But you started so young...

SB: Yes, and I think probably having many many years of being married to someone who was very very famous in America and Europe and where we were...  I kind of get used to that media thing... I don't really think about it anymore. I just try to be natural myself, it seems to work for me.

R: Having this gypsy life, how do you deal with the cares with health, beauty... Are you a fashion and beauty slave, or not?

SB: I don't think I am...  I am actually quite lazy in that area, I have to say... I hate working out, although I do run everyday. Obviously, you have people who help you with your hair and make up, I mean.... you have to have that. I probably do all the wrong things for my health. You know... I may have a drink on evening, and I might eat too late...  But this is life, you have to enjoy it, you can't box yourself up, because otherwise you go mad... so... I just live.

R: A funny thing happened today. I was talking to a guy downstairs here today, at Parque Lage, in Rio, and he said: "Is she Sarah Brightman? What did she do with the colour of her skin?"  We have this image of you, so ethereal, so...

SB: ...pale...

R: Yes, pale. Why did you decided to do this change?

SB: Well, I actually... my mother is ...  half of her is of east Indian descend. So, actually, my skin is quite dark. What happened was, I would say, in the early 80's I had an allergy to the sun for a while, and to lots of light.  You know, if I got on the light, my skin would come up. So I kept out of the sun for a long long long time, for many many years, and I became really pale.  And when I was made up, it was always a very pale make-up, and pale make-up on the body and everything.... so I think that's why I looked like that. But now, now I am older, and I don't have the allergy anymore. I lay out in the sun and I got it immediately and my skin... gets brown! That's what happens!

R: You sang Time to Say Goodbye with Andrea Bocelli. Are you going to do another music with a man partner again? Do you have plans to do it again?

SB: I hope not  (laughs).  They are naughty, these male tenors (both Sarah and the reporter laugh a lot).   I just came from a concert in Japan and at the Bolshoi in Moscow, came from there to here, with Jose Carreras. I work continually with tenors in concerts, whatever, all over the world. I think because I have done so many duets, it's not something I sort of particularly want to pursue for the moment. I want to leave it for a little while. I think that from time to time there will be, but it's not something I want to become known for doing particularly.

R: How is going to be the next Sarah Brightman album?

SB: It is completely different (she says these words in a very emphatic way.)  I already started the sort of preparation work for it.  It doesn't really bring any... how can I say...  it doesn't choose any well known classical pieces or songs that anyone would have known. But it will draw from all sorts of... different types of music.  I don't want to say too much about it yet, because we obviously only started, and many many things may change.

R: Ok. Thank you very much!

SB: Thank you!

And it ends with Whiter Shade of Pale video clip.