THEATER REVIEW : Brightman Enlivens Lloyd Webber Songs

The termination of Sarah Brightman and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s marriage in 1990 may have ended their domestic relationship, but the couple’s musical connections remain strong. Brightman’s touring show, “The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber: A Concert Spectacular,” features the singer in a performance that is billed both as a tribute to Lloyd Webber’s spectacular theatrical career and as a showcase for Brightman’s own considerable abilities.

In the production’s Saturday matinee at Universal Amphitheatre, however, the balance turned out a bit differently. With a full orchestra, a six-member ensemble of singer-dancers and often extensive excerpts from 11 Lloyd Webber works, the accent clearly seemed to be placed on the composer rather than the singer.

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What became evident in this hodgepodge of material, however--unlike far more powerful assemblages of Stephen Sondheim songs--was the strikingly narrow range and breadth of Lloyd Webber’s music. Aside from five or six unquestionably commanding melodies, most of the pieces were quickly forgotten. Despite the production’s impressive lighting effects, Lloyd Webber’s songs--presented without the colorful costumes, lavish sets and elaborate stage machinery of his theatrical performances--sounded at best repetitive, at worst bloated and pretentious.

In fact, it was Brightman’s dozen numbers--from a lush rendering of “Phantom of the Opera’s” “Think of Me” to a passionate “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” from “Evita”--that gave the music and the performance their shape and substance. Nearly everything she touched, including Lloyd Webber’s lesser pieces, came alive. If Brightman appeared a bit too concerned with her technical skills when she moved into the upper limits of her lyric soprano voice, she was otherwise superb. Her Italian-language version of “Memory” (from “Cats”) almost--but not quite--made Lloyd Webber sound like Puccini, and her stylish reading of “Surrender” was effective enough to suggest yet another casting possibility for “Sunset Boulevard.”