They seem to be getting younger and younger these days. First, Britney conquered the pop world with a vengeance at the age of 17. One would have thought the world of classical music was safe, but then Charlotte Church entered the scene three years ago as a starry-eyed 12-year old singing mainly classical music. Last year, Billboard ranked her ninth on its top ten list for female artists.
Before anyone knew what had happened, major symphony orchestras all over the country were dying to have this young ingenue appear with them in their concert halls... whether they liked her music or not. Church may not be the best classical vocalist out there, but you can't deny that she rakes in the dough.
Is the appeal of Charlotte Church to be found in her young voice or her chiseled face? If you happened to catch her on one of those million PBS specials she's headlined, you'd probably agree she has a sweet and pleasant voice. But much of the material she sings is well beyond the scope of a 15-year old whose voice hasn't even fully matured. Challenging songs, like Puccini's "O Mio Babino" and Gershwin's famous "Summertime," should perhaps be left to voices that can truly feel comfortable and at ease with difficult material. She should stick to music that works for her voice, like the type she sings on her Christmas album.
Church (or her domineering mother) assumes that her many fans are dying to know the nuances and details of her extraordinary life. So, they're raking in the bucks with her autobiography, a literary masterpiece entitled Voice of an Angel: My Life (So Far), which will be coming out later this month.
Now, do we really need to know all the details of Church's life? Does anyone really even care? I can't imagine that a 15-year old has that much exciting stuff to tell. After reading excepts from her book, it turns out I'm right. Church is just beginning her journey as an "artist." Maybe if she waited a few more years, she would have some interesting things to tell us... like her first kiss or her first heartbreak.
The opening line of her book (which by the way, was ghostwritten by an English journalist) is, in a word, profound. The first chapter, entitled "I'm Born (Phew!)," starts out like this: "I suppose if we're going to start at the beginning, we should start right at the beginning with the stuff I can't remember. Like my birth."
Oh, don't worry... it gets even better. Check out another random tidbit from the chapter entitled "My Bedroom," that aptly expresses Church's superficial side: "I have to confess I adore shoes. I have at least 20 pairs... I've got a pair of strappy sandals from Singapore that cost nothing and I love them to death."
Not only does this publicity ploy...err, autobiography... devalue her as an artist, but it is also downright embarrassing. It's bound to be the type of thing Church will look back at when she is 20, grimace, and try to burn all existing copies.
Even though Church tells reporters she is completely in control of her life, she must have very little sense of what she is doing. She is a puppet flown from concert halls to glamorous Hollywood parties to classes at her school in Wales. A public that is hungry for anything young and beautiful has thrust her into the limelight. There are plenty of sopranos out there who could sing vocal circles around Church, and classical purists say she is devaluing the art, but her adoring fans ignore this in infatuation over the cherubic young singer.
One can only wonder about the effect this whirlwind lifestyle has on Church. Her sense of reality is clearly distorted. In a recent article in the New York Times Magazine ("The Major Minor," 4/1), she said, "I find it fine to adjust from a normal life to this famous life, but for the people around me, to have this famous person come back into their house and come back to being their friend - I know it's difficult." Sounds like somebody might be letting fame go to her heard. It's nice to know she has such empathy for those friends of hers that have to adjust to her celebrity status when she comes back to Wales.
But egos aside, the question lingers: does Church have any staying power, or is she just a novelty for a public briefly infatuated with the beauty of classical music? She clearly has made a niche for herself in the classical world, but no one knows how long she will want to stay there. If, at the age of 15, she is already collaborating with rap artists like Wyclef Jean, who knows where she'll be in five years?
If we're truly lucky, we might get to read the next installation of her autobiography, entitled Voice of an Angel: My Life Five Years Later and My Battle with Drugs. Maybe she'll burn out and become a normal teenager. Or perhaps she and Britney will co-star in a Hollywood flick together. Now, that would be simply adorable.
