Sarah Brightman looks back on ‘Phantom of the Opera’ and ahead to her Charlotte show
British singer Sarah Brightman, bewitcher of the “angel of music” and audiences around the world, is known for many things.
She’s Broadway’s OG Christine Daaé, “The Phantom of the Opera” ingénue with the soaring soprano in the long-running musical created by her then-husband, Andrew Lloyd Webber.
She’s a chart-topping singer with a vocal range over three octaves.
She recently returned to the stage, in Australia and Asia, playing the faded and ultimately deranged silent film star Norma Desmond in “Sunset Boulevard” (another Lloyd Webber musical.)
She also happens to be a big fan of holiday concerts. Brightman is bringing her holiday show “A Winter Symphony” to Charlotte Dec. 10 at Ovens Auditorium as part of a North American tour. It’s her only stop in North Carolina.
Brightman, 65, recently spoke with The Charlotte Observer from Miami, where she was preparing for the tour. She discussed the holidays, her most famous role and advice her ex gave her for tackling “Sunset.” The conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
I guess I’d like to start with, what is it about the holiday season that interested you in doing a winter tour like this?
I love the holiday season, probably because my family and I are pretty traditional about this time of year. It’s always been an important time for us, as I think it is for many. It’s quite an emotional time for people. Sometimes it’s happy, sometimes it’s sad. It evokes all sorts of emotions in all sorts of different ways. I actually find it a very, incredibly important time of year.
It’s when the year starts to come to a close, you develop everything that you’ve understood in that year, and then you move on to the next year. It’s the closing of it that is particularly beautiful.
So I think holiday music has always fascinated me. It’s a very wonderful thing for us to have as human beings in all sorts of ways, whatever your religion. I’d always wanted to do a Christmas show, but because of having a very heavy schedule, I never really was able to do it. (Brightman went on to explain how the show grew out of a program she and her friends put together during COVID “to create a really beautiful moment during what was quite a negative time.”)
You mentioned that your family had had traditional holidays. Do you have a particular memory as a girl of one of your favorite Christmases?
I think it’s probably the first Christmas that I can remember. Without anybody really explaining it, I understood the mystical side of it. Walking into a room early in the morning, and my mother had obviously decorated a tree and put presents underneath it. The sun wasn’t up yet. It was quite dark. I remember all the lights were on the tree, and the feeling of it that I had as a child. It was so beautiful, and I always remember it.
As for the concert itself, what should audiences expect?
Although I released a Christmas album, there are also a lot of my fans that come to these concerts that want to hear some of my hits. Some of my hits work very beautifully into the Christmas spirit. With slightly different arrangements, they have a more Christmassy feeling. Some of the songs will have more of an American flavor ... We’ll probably touch on Charlie Brown.
I’d like to talk a little bit about your career. My gosh, I mean, I had that double-CD original Broadway cast album of “Phantom” practically since it came out, and I think I wore it out. (The show opened in London in 1986 then transferred to Broadway in early 1988, both times with Brightman as the lead. It finally closed in New York in April 2023 after 35 years, and was the longest-running show in Broadway history.) What are some of your favorite memories of “Phantom”?
That’s a very long time ago. At the time, it was just about putting something together, a beautiful story, with some beautiful compositions that Andrew Lloyd Webber did. A lot of the Christine parts he wrote around my voice, and probably in some ways, a lot of it was written around the character of myself as well. I was sort of an ingénue type, you know, trying to find my way, although it’d be in our modern world. It was easy to imagine how it could have been back in that time. (Circa late 19th century: singing, stalking and that swinging chandelier at a Paris opera house.)
It was just a lot of hard work and a lot of experimentation. I don’t think that anybody had any idea or even thought about where this was going to lead. It was just a case of putting it together in the most beautiful way that one could, and a lot of very talented people involved.
I remember the rehearsals were never traumatic. They just seemed to work. (Iconic theater director) Hal Prince had a really good handle on everything. He really understood about opera’s past, opera in Europe, all of that kind of thing. So he really understood the nuance of it, and how to give that to an audience.
The show has played to over 160 million people in over 200 cities. Why do you think it has endured all this time?
It’s just a very good piece of work. It’s a classic piece of work, and they always tend to stay. And in the middle of all of that, the story is really important. You know, most people watching that really can identify with those characters. We all can. Those characters, they’re very human.
Even the phantom?
Yes, especially the phantom.
You took on another iconic musical role as Norma Desmond in ‘Sunset’ in Australia last year. What was it like taking on that particular role at this time in your life?
It was perfection. (But) it was very challenging to start with, because I hadn’t done it for something like 35 years, being in a musical. And so it was like baby steps to start with, to remind myself of what that was. Just from the tiniest things, walking into a cold studio in the morning, and all these young things running about. And they’re all watching you, and you think, ‘Oh my god, I’m being judged’
Oh no.
No, no, no. It’s fine, because it’s not like that. All these fears start, and once they went away, after a week, I was in it and I knew what to do. And the character of Norma Desmond, it was perfection for me. First of all, it was age appropriate. And having been a solo female performer and having to understand how to navigate life in that arena, it’s a particular knowledge that I’ve gained.
I have an understanding of how it is to go around the world and manage everything and to survive all the ups and downs. And when things go wrong, your career sometimes takes dips. And also navigating the, you know, the personal side of your life is very difficult, from family, husbands, boyfriends, all of that kind of thing.
But it was quite fun to go all the way with a (character like Norma) that actually became very disturbed. It was really interesting for me to sort of go to that place. And it was different every night. It was hard work. And I thoroughly enjoyed it.
It sounds like, I don’t know if empathy is the right word with the character of Norma, but you certainly relate, as you were saying, to that type of history and public attention and at a certain time in your life.
Yes, yes. I think in a way, you have to have experienced similar things to be really realistic in the role. And I also had to understand about how the role was always played with people with kind of Broadway type voices. And I’m a soprano. I was a little concerned, and thinking, how am I going to manage this?
And I spoke to my, you know, to Andrew, about it. So (he said) what you have to remember is a lot of these songs were actually written on your voice. He said, ‘I was writing it all at the time that we were together.’ So he said it will be kind of familiar to you. And it was. Sure enough, once I got my head around it, it was clear to me.
I know we’ve ranged around a bit. Is there anything else you would like to add about the winter symphony, or anything else we’ve discussed?
With the winter symphony, it’s just a beautiful show to come see. Not only what you’re listening to, because we have this beautiful choir, we have backdrops, we have fantastic lighting. And you know the orchestra, and the gowns and everything. Because, of course, gowns are glittery things. It’s kind of got that wonderful traditional feel about it, because I love tradition. And it’s very magical. It’s just a beautiful thing to come and see.
Want to go?
Sarah Brightman in Concert: A Winter Symphony, Dec. 10 at 8 p.m. in Ovens Auditorium, 2900 E. Independence Blvd., Charlotte. For ticket info, go to ticketmaster.com
Sarah Brightman, by the numbers
1 — The only artist to simultaneously top the Billboard dance and classical music charts.
2 — Times she has sung at the Olympics, in Barcelona in 1992 and in Beijing in 2008.
180+ — Total gold and platinum album sales awards from over 40 countries.
35 million — Total units sold globally of her work.
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This story was originally published December 3, 2025 at 5:18 AM with the headline "Sarah Brightman looks back on ‘Phantom of the Opera’ and ahead to her Charlotte show."
