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Although internationally known as a classical crossover star, the teenaged vocalist ventures into musical theater territory on her newest album, Enchantment. Although known for her childhood affections for the pop songs of Billy Idol and Gloria Estefan, Church had other influences as well. "My Nana used to indoctrinate me with West Side Story over and over again," she says.

Church has toyed with the idea of going beyond those amateur roles she played in her Cardiff, Wales, childhood. "There are so many beautiful musicals written," she says. "And I would like to try it, because I want to try everything, but having to do it for six months to a year, every night -- it just sounds so monotonous to me. I think after the first month it would kind of get boring for me, because I have quite a short attention span."

Although Charlotte Church might characterize herself as a flighty teen, that seems more a convenient cover story for a young woman whose smarts and maturity are equal to her striking soprano voice. At age 12, Church was "discovered" and soon recorded her top-selling 1998 debut Voice of an Angel, which featured her popular version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Pie Jesu" from Requiem. (Charlotte Church in 1999 and the Christmas collection Dream a Dream in 2000 were similarly successful.)

Enchantment diverges furthest from Church's previous albums -- which lean heavily toward sacred repertoire -- by including such West Side Story songs as "Tonight" and "Somewhere." She features such lovely ballads as "If I Loved You" from Carousel and "A Bit of Earth" from The Secret Garden and has a bit of fun with such classics as the exotic "Bali Ha'i" from South Pacific and a sweetly swaggering "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" from Show Boat.

Church's affection for Celtic melodies resurfaces on Enchantment with such songs as the soaring "Carrickfergus," which comes embellished with penny whistle and Uilleann pipes. Her more traditional classical material includes Johann Strauss' "The Laughing Song" and "Habanera" from Carmen, the latter imbued with a worldbeat/flamenco flavor courtesy of guitarist Jesse Cook. And Erik Satie's "Gymnopedie No. 1" has been newly arranged by Cook into a vocal version titled "From My First Moment." (Church heard a school friend playing the delicate melody and decided to have lyrics set to it.)

From her soundtrack work on the upcoming Ron Howard film A Beautiful Mind to her intentions to someday add such songs as John Lennon's "Imagine" and R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts" to her repertoire, Charlotte Church is an artist determined to grow -- even while she grows up in public.

 

"I never wanted to be famous. Ever. I just wanted to sing, and even if it was just for myself, or if it was just for my family, then it was just something that I liked doing."

This is the CDNOW Interview with Charlotte Church.

CDNOW: The repertoire of Enchantment, down to photos and art direction, seems to suggest a sort of fantasy world. Was there a sense of that?

Charlotte Church: It was kind of like, "Oh my God, what can we call it?" We can't call it Charlotte Church; we've already done that -- easy option kind of finished. And then one was The Angel Takes Flight, and I was like, OK no, we want to get away from that. And another was River of Flowers or Silver Girl. And I said, you know what? Just call it Enchantment because I felt, first of all, the effect the music has on certain people is kind of like enchanted, and there's this whole mystery about it. Nobody actually knows why it helps people, why it makes them sad, why it makes them happy. It's just something about it that seems kind of magical and mystical, and enchanted. And it's one of the few art forms that can actually do that for people.

Have you always been a fan of Celtic music?

Because I'm Celtic -- and Celtic music is so beautiful, I think it's really, really gorgeous. And I just love all of that kind of haunting music anyway. I don't know, apparently, it suits my voice as well, so it's all good. A win-win situation.

Did you have any reservations about taking some musical liberties with "Habanera"?

Not at all, because I don't think it's wrong to experiment, I don't think it's wrong to mix different musical cultures and musical genres. I think it's all to do with evolving music. Where is there a law that you have to keep puritan, classical music classical -- you're not allowed to change it? And I think that the musicianship on that track with Jesse Cook, an unbelievable flamenco guitarist -- he could play any piece of classical music that you put in front of him. And so I think that the high level of musicianship -- I'm not necessarily saying my voice -- but everything else, all the backing, it's just brilliant. So I don't think anybody can say, "Oh, it's ruining it."

How much do you think about your fans when you do something?

Of course, there's always a thing about broadening audiences and things like that. And there've been some things that I've thought, "I'd like to do that, but I know it won't go down well." And there've been times when I haven't even thought of it, and people have said, "That's not going to go down well with your fans." And so I do think of that, and I do have to stop myself with certain things, because it wouldn't be what they wanted ... But that's the whole thing that you accept with fame, is that you do become public property, and you do have to listen to, say, 10,000 people's opinion, rather than your parents', which is quite strange. "Oh really? You'd like me to have a dog? OK, I'll work on that one."

Do you like to perform a song in concert before you record it?

If you read music, it's not that difficult; you just go there and sing it. But to make the most of it and to really get the maximum impact of a song, and to understand it musically, and how it's phrased, and to interpret the words, and everything, you've got to live with it. The longer you live with it, the more comfortably you'll be with it, but there's always the danger of getting kind of a bit bored with it, like what happened with me with "Pie Jesu." But then, it kind of reinvented itself for me -- because I've been singing it for five years, which, when you're 15 is a long time. That's kind of like a third of my life [laughs]. How ridiculous is that?

 

"I don't think it's wrong to mix different musical cultures and musical genres. I think it's all to do with evolving music."

When did you start singing?

I always danced, and I always sang, and I was always in the tap-dancing class. Yeah, I remember that. And when I was about 8, and we used to go to Turkey, and we used to go to Spain, and things like that, I was at the karaoke bars. I used to be up at the karaoke bars until 6 o'clock in the morning. My parents are there, going, "Can we go home yet, Charl?" and I'm going, "One more time with the Whitney Houston song 'I Will Always Love You,' and I'm finished." It was kind of like that.

You know, most 6-year-olds say, "Mommy, I want to be famous. I want to be Britney Spears." I was never, ever like that. I never wanted to be famous. Ever. I just wanted to sing, and even if it was just for myself, or if it was just for my family, then it was just something that I liked doing, so when this fame did come, it was like, "Whoa, OK. Do I want this?" A lot of people think that we just kind of jumped into [it], and I think if you do just like jump into it and don't think about it, then that's where the whole tragic sub-story, child-star-off-the-rails thing comes in. But me and my family thought really long and hard about it.