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“The Prayer” is a song performed by Canadian singer Celine Dion and Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli. It was written by David Foster, Carole Bayer Sager, Alberto Testa and Tony Renis. “The Prayer” was originally recorded in two solo versions for the 1998 film Quest for Camelot, in English by Dion and in Italian by Bocelli. A duet between Dion and Bocelli later appeared on their respective studio albums, These Are Special Times (1998) and Sogno (1999), and was released as a promotional single on 1 March 1999. “The Prayer” won a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1999 and a Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals in 2000. It received highly positive reviews from music critics and entered adult contemporary charts in Canada and the United States in 1999. In 2008, Dion released a live version of “The Prayer” as a duet with Josh Groban. This music download entered the Canadian Hot 100 at number 37 and the Billboard Hot 100 at number 70.

History

Originally “The Prayer” was recorded as two separate solo versions, Dion’s in English and Bocelli’s in Italian. They appeared on the Quest for Camelot soundtrack in May 1998. The duet was included on albums by both artists, released a few months later on Sogno and These Are Special Times. Bocelli sang original Italian while Dion translated into English. The song won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song from the 1998 film Quest for Camelot, the second win in a row for a Celine Dion song. In that film, Dion sang it as a solo with slightly different lyrics. It was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1999 and a Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals in 2000. Dion performed it with Bocelli at both ceremonies.

It was also featured on Dion’s compilation The Collector’s Series, Volume One (2000) and greatest hits My Love: Ultimate Essential Collection (2008). A re-recorded solo version by Celine Dion (renamed “A Mother’s Prayer”) appeared on her 2004 album Miracle. Dion performed “The Prayer” live during her Taking Chances Tour as a virtual duet with Bocelli on the screen; the performance was released in the Taking Chances World Tour: The Concert CD/DVD. The song appeared also on Bocelli’s 2007 compilation The Best of Andrea Bocelli: Vivere. Dion joined Bocelli to perform the song in his Concerto: One Night in Central Park concert in 2011; the performance was subsequently released on CD and DVD. Both Dion and Bocelli have sung the song with other duet partners, and various other artists have recorded the song, either as a duet or a solo.

The original version of “The Prayer” failed to chart on the US Billboard Hot 100, but reached number 6 and number 22 on the adult contemporary charts in Canada and the United States, respectively. It has also become popular during Christmas, weddings and, in some cases, funerals and religious services.

Critical reception

Paul Verna from Billboard called this song a “gorgeous duet”. Chuck Taylor from Billboard reviewed “The Prayer”, calling it “a breathtaking, ultra-lush song, and the tour de force combination of Dion and Bocelli [which] will send a half-dozen chills up your spine”. Although he felt that the song is “an unorthodox track for the radio,” Taylor called it “affecting,” “heartwarming,” “absolutely exquisite” and “one of Dion’s most radiant performances ever”.

Celine Dion and Josh Groban version

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Celine Dion first performed “The Prayer” live with Josh Groban in 1999, when then 17-year old Groban filled in for Andrea Bocelli at rehearsal for the 41st Annual Grammy Awards. Nine years later, the two performed the song during her CBS TV special That’s Just the Woman in Me, aired on 15 February 2008. This version was released as a music download in the United States and Canada two days earlier. It proved to be much more successful than the original, entering the Billboard Hot 100 at number 70. It also appeared on a few other Billboard charts: Pop 100 at number 50, Hot Digital Songs at number 32 and Hot Digital Tracks at number 29. The single sold 37,531 copies in its first week in the US. In Canada, the song peaked at number 37 on the Canadian Hot 100 and number 19 on the Canadian Top Digital Downloads.

Anthony Callea version

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Callea first performed this song during Australian Idol 2004, in the week of “contestants choice”. He received a standing ovation for this performance and the “Grand Royal Touchdown” from judge Mark Holden. He would go on to be runner-up in this series.

At the completion of the show, Callea was signed to Sony BMG, and he released “The Prayer” as his debut single.

It was released in Australia on 19 December 2004 and debuted at number 1 on the ARIA Charts. It stayed there for five weeks and was certified 4x platinum by ARIA. It became the fastest-selling single by any Australian artist, and was the second-highest-selling single in Australia within the 2000s overall, and for an Australian artist. The song was included on Callea’s debut album Anthony Callea. The music video includes excerpts of Callea recording the song and was released in 2004.

Callea has performed “The Prayer” at numerous concerts as well as the Carols by Candlelight in Melbourne. In 2006, he performed the song in front of Queen Elizabeth II at a Commonwealth Day Service  He also performed it as a duet with Tina Arena on her Symphony of Life CD/DVD, released in 2012.

By May be found at the following website: http://www.impawards.com/1998/quest_for_camelot_ver6.html, Fair use, Link

Quest for Camelot (released internationally as The Magic Sword: Quest for Camelot) is a 1998 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Warner Bros. Feature Animation and directed by Frederik Du Chau and very loosely based on the 1976 novel The King’s Damosel by Vera Chapman. It features the voices of Jessalyn Gilsig, Cary Elwes, Gary Oldman, Eric Idle, Don Rickles, Jaleel White, Jane Seymour, Pierce Brosnan, Gabriel Byrne, John Gielgud, Frank Welker and Sarah Rayne. Andrea Corr, Bryan White, Celine Dion and Steve Perry perform the singing voices for Gilsig, Elwes, Seymour and Brosnan.

In May 1995, the film, initially titled The Quest for the Holy Grail, was announced to be Warner Bros. Feature Animation‘s first project, with Bill Kroyer as director. The film went into production later that year, but was delayed when animators were re-assigned to help finish Space Jam (1996). During the interim, the story was heavily re-tooled, among of which the central focus on the Holy Grail would be replaced with Excalibur. This resulted in creative differences, in which Kroyer was replaced with Du Chau. This was later followed with prominent departures of the animation and management staff. Because of the production troubles, the film’s release was delayed by six months, from November 1997 to May 1998. Animation was mostly done in Glendale, California and London.

Quest for Camelot was released by Warner Bros. under their Family Entertainment label on May 15, 1998. It received mixed to negative reviews and was an “expensive flop”, grossing $38.1 million against a $40 million budget. One of the songs, “The Prayer“, won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Production

In May 1995, The Quest for the Grail was Warner Bros. Feature Animation‘s first announced project. Bill Kroyer and Frederik Du Chau were announced as the directors, with Sue Kroyer serving as co-producer. The initial story centered around a young female character named Susannah who embarks on a dangerous quest for the Holy Grail to save her sister from a ruthless and powerful knight. The film was put into production before the story was finalized. However, during the fall of 1995, the animators were reassigned to finish Space Jam (1996). Meanwhile, in April 1996, Christopher Reeve was cast as King Arthur. During the interim, several story changes were made that resulted in creative differences between the Kroyers and the studio management. In particular, the Holy Grail was replaced with Excalibur, in which Warner Bros. Feature Animation president Max Howard felt better reflected the film’s setting: “The symbol of Camelot is the power of Excalibur, and that became a more interesting theme: Whoever held the sword, held the power.” By the middle of 1996, the Kroyers were allegedly fired by Howard, who later moved on to developing another project at Warner Bros. Feature Animation.

Following the departure of the Kroyers, two supervising animators along with several employees in the studio’s art department subsequently left the project. The film’s initial producer, Frank Gladstone, left the project in February 1997 and was replaced with Dalisa Cohen. Effects supervisor Michel Gagné recalled that “People were giving up. The head of layout was kicked out, the head of background, the executive producer, the producer, the director, the associate producer—all the heads rolled. It’s kind of a hard environment to work in.” Eventually, Du Chau was promoted to be the film’s director. Meanwhile, Reeve was replaced by Pierce Brosnan when he became unavailable to record new dialogue.

In an article in Animation Magazine, Chrystal Klabunde, the leading animator of Garrett, stated, “It was top heavy. All the executives were happily running around and playing executive, getting corner offices—but very few of them had any concept about animation at all, about doing an animated film. It never occurred to anybody at the top that they had to start from the bottom and build that up. The problems were really coming at the inexperience of everyone involved. Those were people from Disney that had the idea that you just said, ‘Do it,’ and it gets done. It never occurred to them that it got done because Disney had an infrastructure in place, working like clockwork. We didn’t have that.” Reportedly, “cost overruns and production nightmares” led the studio to “reconsider their commitment to feature animation.” Filmmaker Brad Bird (who helmed The Iron Giant, Warner Bros.’ next animated film) thought that micromanaging, which he said had worked well for Disney but not for Warner Bros., had been part of the problem.

Animation

The film was mainly animated at the main Warner Bros. Feature Animation facility located in Glendale, California and London, England. In January 1996, the London animation studio was opened where more than 50 animators were expected to animate 20 minutes of animation, which would be sent back to Glendale to be inked-and-painted. Additional studios that worked on the film included Yowza! Animation in Toronto, Ontario, where they assisted in clean-up animation, Heart of Texas Productions in Austin, and A. Film A/S in Copenhagen where, along with London, about a quarter of the film was animated overseas. The supervising animators were Athanassios Vakalis for Kayley, Chrystal Klabunde for Garrett, Cynthia Overman for Juliana, Alexander Williams for Ruber, Dan Wagner for Devon and Cornwall, Stephan Franck for the Griffin and Bladebeak, and Mike Nguyen for Ayden.

To create the rock-like ogre and other computer-generated effects, the production team used Silicon Graphics‘ Alias Research software. According to Katherine Percy, the head of CGI effects, the software was originally designed for special effects used in live-action films.

Music

On January 31, 1996, Carole Bayer Sager and David Foster were attached to compose several songs for the film. The album peaked at #117 on the Billboard 200, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for “The Prayer“. The song was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, though it lost to “When You Believe” from DreamWorks‘ The Prince of Egypt.

On the soundtrack, “The Prayer” was performed separately by Celine Dion in English, and by Andrea Bocelli in Italian. The now better-known Dion-Bocelli duet in both languages first appeared in October 1998 on Dion’s Christmas album These Are Special Times; it was also released as a single in March 1999 and on Bocelli’s album Sogno in April 1999.

“Looking Through Your Eyes” was the lead single for the soundtrack. Other original songs composed for the film include “United We Stand”, “On My Father’s Wings”, “Ruber”, “I Stand Alone”, and “If I Didn’t Have You”. The soundtrack also includes pop versions of “Looking Through Your Eyes” and “I Stand Alone” performed by LeAnn Rimes and Steve Perry, respectively.

Songs

Original songs performed in the film include:

Quest for Camelot OST – 01 – Looking Through Your Eyes ( LeAnn Rimes)

Quest for Camelot OST – 02 – I Stand Alone (Steve Perry)

Quest for Camelot OST – 03 – The Prayer (Celine Dion)

Quest for Camelot OST – 04 – United We Stand (Steve Perry)

Quest for Camelot OST – 05 – On My Father’s Wings (The Corrs)

Quest for Camelot OST – 06 – Looking Through Your Eyes (The Corrs and Bryan White)

Quest for Camelot OST – 07 – Ruber (Gary Oldman)

Quest for Camelot OST – 08 – I Stand All Alone (Bryan White)

Quest for Camelot OST – 09 – If I Didn’t Have You

Quest for Camelot OST – 10 – Dragon Attack/Forbidden Forest

Quest for Camelot OST – 11 – The Battle

Céline Dion, Andrea Bocelli – The Prayer (Official Audio)

Release

The film was originally slated for November 1997, but was pushed to May 1998 to give the production team more time to finish the film.

Marketing

The film was accompanied with a promotional campaign with promotional licensees including Wendy’s and Kenner Products. It also partnered with Scholastic to produce children’s books based on the film.

Home media

Quest for Camelot was released on VHS and DVD by Warner Home Video on October 13, 1998. The VHS edition includes a teaser trailer for Warner Bros. and Morgan Creek Productions‘ The King and I (1999) and the Tom and Jerry cartoon, “The Two Mouseketeers“, while the DVD included several making-of documentaries with interviews of the filmmakers and cast and a music video of “I Stand Alone”. To help promote the home video release of the film, Warner Bros. partnered with Act II, American Express, Best Western, CoinStar, Continental Airlines, Smucker’s, and UNICEF, which advertised its trick-or-treat donation boxes before Halloween arrived.

Reception

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 45% based on 29 reviews, with an average rating of 5.28/10. The website’s critical consensus reads, “Diminished by uneven animation and treacly songs, Quest for Camelot is an adventure that ought to be tossed back to the Lady in the Lake.” Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a B+ on a grade scale from A to F.

Owen Gleiberman, reviewing for Entertainment Weekly, wrote, “The images are playful and serviceably lush, but the story and characters might have come out of a screenwriting software program, and the songs (sung by Celine Dion and Steve Perry, among others) are Vegas-pop wallpaper.” David Kronke of the Los Angeles Times described the film as “formulaic” and wrote that it was “a nearly perfect reflection of troubling trends in animated features”. He called Kayley “a standard-issue spunky female heroine” and said that “Garrett’s blindness is the one adventurous element to the film, but even it seems calculated; his lack of sight is hardly debilitating, yet still provides kids a lesson in acceptance.”

Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle said that the film is “a spirited adventure with generous romantic and comic charms” that “aims to please a range of ages, with loopy gags, corny romance, an oversized villain and catchy tunes performed by Celine Dion and LeAnn Rimes, among others.” Joe Leydon of Variety considered the film as a “lightweight but likable fantasy that offers a playfully feminist twist to Arthurian legends” and noted that the “animation, though not quite up to Disney standards, is impressive enough on its own terms to dazzle the eye and serve the story.”

Box office

Quest for Camelot grossed $6 million on its opening weekend, ranking third behind The Horse Whisperer and Deep Impact. The film ultimately grossed $22.5 million during its theatrical run in North America. Cumulatively, the film grossed $38.1 million worldwide. The studio lost about $40 million on the film.

Accolades

The film gathered two Annie Award nominations, including Best Animated Feature and Best Animated Effects.

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

• 2004: AFI’s 100 Years…100 Songs:
  • “The Prayer” – Nominated

Watch the movie

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