Sings the Songs of Andrew Lloyd Webber American Songbook, but unlike Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and many other artists, she had never recorded a complete album of songs by one composer. The songs on the album are all taken from the popular musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber, that he wrote with various lyricists. The oldest song found on the album is from the 1971 musical "Jesus Christ Superstar" which originally opened on Broadway in October of that year. Bringing it up to date the album also includes two songs from "Sunset Boulevard" which had recently premiered on July 12, 1993 in London's West End. Four songs had
The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical) part by an earlier musical version of the same story by Ken Hill, Lloyd Webber's score is sometimes operatic in style but maintains the form and structure of a musical throughout. The full-fledged operatic passages are reserved principally for subsidiary characters such as Andre and Firmin, Carlotta, and Piangi. They are also used to provide the content of the fictional "operas" that are taking place within the show itself, viz., "Hannibal", "Il Muto", and the Phantom's masterwork, "Don Juan Triumphant". "Here, Lloyd Webber pastiched various styles from the grand operas of Meyerbeer through to Mozart and even Gilbert and Sullivan."