Sarah Brightman (GB)

About

Also known as: Brightman, Sarah, Hepsibah, S. Brightman, Sara Brightman, サラ・ブライトマン, 莎拉・布萊曼

Sarah Brightman started out in the late 1970s as a member of dance troupe Hot Gossip, scoring a disco hit with "I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper" before carving out a stage career that would define an era in musical theatre. She originated the role of Christine Daaé in The Phantom of the Opera, a part written specifically for her, and the original London cast recording went on to sell 40 million copies, making it the biggest selling cast album ever. Her 1996 duet with Andrea Bocelli, "Time to Say Goodbye", spent 14 consecutive weeks at number one in Germany and sold 12 million copies worldwide, landing it among the best selling singles of all time. After stepping away from the stage, Brightman reinvented herself as a classical crossover soprano, working with former Enigma producer Frank Peterson, and is widely credited as a pioneer of the genre. More than 25 million albums and two million DVDs sold later, she holds the title of the world's best selling soprano. She is also the only artist invited twice to perform the theme song at the Olympic Games, once in Barcelona in 1992 and again in Beijing in 2008, the latter reaching an estimated four billion viewers.