Three words: This album SUCKS! ! !Brightman has a voice that is thin and warbly, with too much vibrato. Her phrasing is simplistic and cloying. An arrangement of "Scarborough Fair" on the album should have been a clue to how wretched this record is. I really hate that song and it has been covered more times than it deserves. This version doesn't shed any new light on it, on the contrary it proves how aged it has become.
Brightman improves somewhat when she adopts a more operatic approach, as in "Serenade", "How Fair This Place" and "Solo Con Te". Then again, anyone who is familiar with Billie Holiday's definitive version of "Gloomy Sunday" will be very disappointed in her weak rendering (and those who prefer Diamanda Galas' suicide-inducing take will be absolutely sickened).
One song does, however, reveal some originality and beauty in Brightman's singing on this album. "Figlio Perduto" is an amazing rendition of the slow movement in Beethoven's seventh symphony. The vocals in the first 3/4 of this song are multi-tracked counterpoint and reveal a rich compexity, an ethereal loveliness that I'd hoped, when I first listened to "La Luna" might br prevalent througout. But even that song is ruined, IMO, by a traditional choir entering during it's final moments. Nothing against choirs...I'm actually quite fond of them. But Sarah had me transfixed and hypnotized on her own...the choir spoiled the mood, turning it into just another choral piece (albeit with a drum track).
But it was decent enough that I held out a little hope that there might be something similarly enchanting to come. When the next track began, starting off with a dreamy arrangement of what I think is Bach's Air on a G String, I thought maybe, just maybe she might have another sweet, spacy reconstruction of another timeless classical number. Then, just a couple of seconds before the vocal came in, it hit me..."Oh shit...I bet this is going to be a cover of 'A Whiter Shade of Pale'...UGH!" I would have won that bet. Even if I didn't think that Procal Harum should have exclusive rights to that song (which I do), I still contend that Brightman's version takes it to the lowest point it's been since GG Allin's version...
...okay, admittedly, GG Allin never did "A Whiter Shade of Pale"...that was a joke. But I would bet double or nothing that if he had, it would be only marginally worse than Sarah Brightman's wispy, whiney cover.
The rest of the album sounds more or less like an operatic singer trying to make a trip-hop album and not succeeding. Recently I heard Liz Fraser doing "This Love" with Massive Attack. Brightman makes an attempt at it here. Comparison of the two interpretations reveals the root of her problem...
Sarah Brightman has no soul.
