Track Listing

1. Every Story
2. Can You Feel The Love Tonight
3. Boy From Nowhere
4. Lift The Wings
5. Not While I'm Around
6. Phantom Of The Opera
7. Music Of The Night
8. Winner Takes It All
9. Seasons Of Love
10. Bring Him Home
11. Tell Me On A Sunday
12. Immortality
13. Send In The Clowns
14. Tell Me It's Not True

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30038 in Music
• Released on: 2002-04-15
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
"Can you feel the lo-o-o-o-ve tonight?" Michael Ball asks in the song of the same name. One thing's for sure: we can definitely feel the full impact of his vibrato. And maybe that's what makes him one of Britain's most popular musical-theatre singers. Packed with ballads, Centre Stage features songs pulled mostly from contemporary blockbusters such as Aida, Les Miserables, Blood Brothers and Riverdance. Ball isn’t the best Sondheim interpreter (eg: "Not While I'm Around"), but his relatively low-key take on ABBA's "The Winner Takes It All" is surprisingly effective.

Like Linda Eder and Sarah Brightman, he's a crossover artist, equally at ease in the West End, on Broadway and in Las Vegas. "Seasons of Love" is the best example of this strategy. The synth-heavy arrangements get close to the cheese zone at times, but Ball's power-pipes mostly manage to overcome them. The album's centerpiece is the delirious title song from Phantom of the Opera, a duet with Lesley Garrett; it comes across like old-school Queen trying its damnedest to write a Broadway hit. It's so over the top, so flamboyantly bombastic, that only a terminal snob wouldn't love it. Or at least crack a smile. --Elisabeth Vincentelli

CD Description
'Centre Stage' is a collection of songs from famous musicals performed by Michael Ball. Ball has previously played major parts in productions of 'Les Miserables' and 'West Side Story'. This album is his follow up to 2000's 'This Time...It's Personal'.

Customer Reviews

Good and varied songs of my favourite shows, old and new.
As a second musicals CD, you wonder if the songs may be a bit thin, but there is such a varied content with songs from so many different shows. My favourites are from Blood Brothers, Mama Mia and Rent. He has such a nack of mixing both old and new songs, and has such a strong voice. I could listen for hours!

Micheal Ball's best collection of show tunes to date
Michael Ball created the role of Alex Dillingham in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Aspects of Love," which meant he was the first to record "Love Changes Everything." As a singer-actor Ball appeared in West End productions of "Les Miserables" and "Phantom of the Opera," but has predominantly become a recording artist and concert performing. After his 1998 album "Musicals" and came out with "Centre Stage" in 2001, which offers another exploration of the songs of Broadway. This album is the better of the two and that might owe as much to the song selection as it does to the additional three years of experience singing such songs.

There is a trio of Lloyd Webber songs, with a duet of "Phantom of the Opera" with Lesley Garrett setting up "The Music of the Night," just as it does in the show, and a surprisingly sedate version of "Tell Me on a Sunday." Stephen Sondheim pops up twice with "Not While I'm Around" and "Send in the Clowns." Actually there is quite a bit of pop on the album which opens with a pair of tracks from Elton John-Tim Rice shows and has songs by ABBA and the Bee Gees that made it to Broadway efforts based on their work. But the songs that really stand out on this album tend to be from the next generation of Broadway song writers, "The Boy From Nowhere" from "Matador," "Seasons of Love" from "Rent," and "Tell Me It's Not True" from "Blood Brothers." If you get the feeling that Ball sings more as himself and not as the characters and that his singing reflects a more British sensibility than you are accustomed to hearing in American musical theater, I would not disagree. But taken on those terms this is a solid collection of show tunes.

Yet Another Delightful CD!
Over the years Michael Ball has released a number of albums and they have all been terriffic -- if it's possible, I think this one may be even better than his previous. Every track is a delight; he has chosen his material carefully and finally recorded some Broadway classics that fans have long waited to hear him sing (Music of the Night and Bring Him Home). Michael also chose to record a few lesser-known songs (The Boy From Nowhere and Lift the Wings) which will now become standards I'm sure. Whether familiar with Michael's work or one of those who have yet to experience his music you will LOVE this album!