Important Information

Sarah Brightman (born 14 August 1960) is an English classical crossover lyric soprano, actress, songwriter and dancer.
She has sung in many languages, including English, Spanish, French, Latin, German, Italian, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Catalan and Occitan.Brightman began her career as a member of the dance troupe Hot Gossip and released several disco singles as a solo performer.
In 1981, she made her West End musical theatre debut in Cats and met composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, whom she married.
She went on to star in several West End and Broadway musicals, including The Phantom of the Opera, where she originated the role of Christine Daaé.
The Original London Cast Album of the musical was released in CD format in 1987 and sold 40 million copies worldwide, making it the biggest-selling cast album of all time.After retiring from the stage and divorcing Lloyd Webber, Brightman resumed her music career with former Enigma producer Frank Peterson, this time as a classical crossover artist.
She is often credited as the creator of this genre and remains among the most prominent performers, with worldwide sales of more than 30 million records and 2 million DVDs, establishing herself as the world's best-selling soprano of all time.Brightman's 1996 duet with the Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, "Time To Say Goodbye", topped charts all over Europe and became the highest and fastest selling single of all time in Germany, where it stayed at the top of the charts for fourteen consecutive weeks and sold over 3 million copies.
It subsequently became an international success selling 12 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time.
She has now collected over 180 gold and platinum sales awards in 38 different countries.
In 2010 she was named by Billboard the 5th most influential and best-selling classical artist of the 2000s decade in the US and according to Nielsen SoundScan, she has sold 6.5 million albums in the country.Brightman is the first artist to have been invited twice to perform at the Olympic Games, first at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games where she sang "Amigos Para Siempre" with the Spanish tenor José Carreras with an estimated global audience of a billion people, and sixteen years later in Beijing, this time with Chinese singer Liu Huan, performing the song "You and Me" to an estimated 4 billion people worldwide.
Since 2010, Brightman is Panasonic's global brand ambassador.
Together they launched the song "Shall Be Done" at the 2010 Winter Games held in Vancouver, Canada.
Brightman is the face of Panasonic's strategic partnership agreement with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre as she stars in their joint campaign, "The World Heritage Special," that was aired on the National Geographic Channel worldwide.Apart from music, Brightman has begun a film career, making her debut in Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008), a rock opera-musical film directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, and in autumn 2011 and early 2012 Stephen Evans' "First Night", starring opposite Richard E.
Grant.
In addition, she formed her own production company, Instinct Films, where her first film is in pre-production.
Brightman is the world's richest female classical performer with a fortune of £36m (about US$56m).
As of 2012, she is training for a space journey to the International Space Station, currently set for 2015.MusicalsI and Albert (as Vicky and street waif), 1973 Piccadilly Theatre, LondonCats (as Jemima), 1981 New London TheatreThe Pirates of Penzance (as Kate), 1982Masquerade (as Tara Treetops), 1982Nightingale (as Nightingale), 1982 Buxton Festival and the Lyric, HammersmithSong and Dance (as the girl), Palace Theatre in London on 28 April 1984The Phantom of the Opera (as Christine Daaé), 1986 Her Majesty's Theatre London, 1988 BroadwayAspects of Love (as Rose Vibert), December 1990 at the Broadhurst Theatre on BroadwayOperettaThe Merry Widow (as Valencienne), 1985PlaysTrelawny of the Wells (as Rose Trelawny), 1992 Harold Pinter TheatreRelative Values (as Miranda Frayle), 1993 Chichester Festival and Savoy TheatreDangerous Obsession (as Sally Driscoll), 1994 Haymarket Theatre, BasingstokeThe Innocents (as Miss Giddens), 1995 Haymarket Theatre, Basingstoke