Sarah Brightman - One Night in Eden

Studio: Emi Music Distribution Release Date: 03/16/2006

It's hard to know what to make of this full-length, lavishly produced concert by Sarah Brightman, a singer and performer who seems to have been born a half-century too late. Had she come on the scene in the 1950s, when Broadway musicals were a career stepping-stone to recording contracts and TV variety-show guest appearances, Brightman could have had a Julie Andrews-type career. But Brightman, one-time companion of Andrew Lloyd Webber (who gave her the starring role in Broadway's The Phantom of the Opera), is trying to find her concert market a decade after her Phantom success. One Night in Eden, a live performance of a solo album, has elaborate, stagey set pieces that look like a bizarre cross between Stevie Nicks and Madonna. And Brightman has the musical taste of a pretentious Celine Dion (she even sings Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" in Italian, as though this gives it class). Her pudgy build isn't enhanced by the half-dozen gowns (she favors the Pre-Raphaelite) she changes into in a show that is apparently for fans only. --Marshall Fine