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Following The Norse Star Scandinavian singer Sissel sizzles with hit 'Titanic' soundtrack
By DENENE MILLNER
 he connection is near immediate. Sissel is tall and dark-haired and beautiful -- dressed nouveau, cool-as-you-please black from head to toe. Her voice is deep enough for you to think she'd burn up the stage in a smoky blues club somewhere.
Then she pops "Prince Igor Rhapsody" -- it's a duet she performed with gangsta rapper Warren G. that's burning up Europe's pop charts -- into the CD player, and the same operatic voice that haunts the mostly orchestral score of the blockbuster film "Titanic" fills the room. It is, indeed, the voice of an angel. "You think blond, fair-skinned, right?" Sissel says, a wry smile crossing her face. Indeed, if one is to envision the perfect musical backdrop to the "Titanic" love story, it is surely her pure, melodic voice. Sissel's "Titanic" soundtrack crashed into the No. 1 slot last week. The score won a Golden Globe Award on Sunday night. (Celine Dion also is featured on the soundtrack with "My Heart Will Go On.") Sissel -- a wunderkind in her native Norway, where one of every two Norwegians is said to own a Sissel album -- had never realized her "Titanic" piece would get so much attention in America. "You just assume they'll love the music, because anyone who listens to music will love it," she says. "But I couldn't imagine that it would be No. 1." Composer James Horner had auditioned about 30 singers before he happened upon a Sissel CD on which the 28-year-old was singing a Scandinavian folk song. Her voice "was exquisite," he says. But instead of having her sing words, Horner used Sissel's voice almost as an additional instrument -- filling what Sissel termed his "simple lines" with her haunting "aahs and oohs." "Even long before I saw the film, the first time I met with James, he was just playing and I was just stunned," Sissel said. "It's so beautiful and so simple. It was such a sacred moment; he really managed to gather the beauty of the story into those few lines." Sissel began singing professionally at 16, with choirs in and around Norway. It wasn't long, though, before she found herself standing solo on those same stages, singing a mix of acoustic folk music, New Age and jazz in her native tongue. Her five albums combined have sold more than 2.5 million copies. She caught the world's attention during the 1994 Olympic Winter Games at Lillehammer, when she combined on a duet with Placido Domingo to record the international hit Olympic anthem, "Fire in Your Heart." She has since been touring with the Irish sensation The Chieftans. Sissel says she's excited by the prospect of becoming an American star -- but it's important that her allegiance to her Scandinavian musical sensibilities remain uncompromised. "For me, it's just important to use my music that I have with me from Scandinavia — and, in working with American composers and producers, mixing those two things, I think we can make something that can work," she says. "I don't know how it will turn out, but for me, it's just important that I don't go on that kind of compromise and lose what is me."
Original Story Date: 012098
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