Sarah Brightman was born on 14 August 1960 in Berkhampstead, England. She began dancing at the age of three, and ten years later made her London theatrical debut in Charles Strouse's I and Albert.

By 1976, she was a dancer on the television series Pan's People. She first came to real notice in 1978 when, with the dance group Hot Gossip, she made the UK Top 10 with the disco-pop single I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper. It was all a far cry from her childhood ambition to become a ballet dancer.

Three years after her chart success, she was cast in the role of Jemima in Andrew Llloyd Webber's musical Cats, and was noticed again - this time by the composer himself - he divorced his first wife to marry Sarah in 1984. The marriage lasted for six years, and, during that time, Brightman became established as one of the premier leading ladies of the musical theatre. After Cats, she appeared for a season at the Old Vic in Frank Dunlop's 1982 adaptation of Masquerade, and later in the year she was in Charles Strouse's short-lived musical Nightingale.

All this time she was taking singing lessons, training her superb soprano voice so that she could undertake more demanding roles than those in conventional musical comedy. In 1984 she appeared in the television version of Lloyd Webber's Song And Dance, and also sang on the Top 30 album. A year later, she made her operatic debut in the role of Valencienne in The Merry Widow at Sadlers Wells, and gave several concerts of Lloyd Webber's Requiem in England and America, which resulted in another bestselling album. It also produced a Top 5 single, Pie Jesu, on which Brightman duetted with the 12-year-old Paul Miles-Kingston.

In 1986 she enjoyed a great personal triumph when she co-starred with Michael Crawford in The Phantom Of The Opera, and recreated her role two years later on Broadway. She had UK Top 10 hits with three songs from the show, The Phantom Of The Opera (with Steve Harley), All I Ask Of You (with Cliff Richard) and Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again.

In the late 80s and early 90s, she toured many parts of the world, including Japan and the UK, in a concert production of The Music Of Andrew Lloyd Webber: A Concert Spectacular.

In December 1991, at the end of the American leg of the tour, she took over the leading role of Rose in Aspects Of Love for the last few weeks of the Broadway run. She also joined the West End production for a time. In 1992 Brightman was high in the UK chart again, this time duetting with opera singer José Carreras on the Olympic Anthem, Amigos Para Siempre (Friends For Life).

In 1993 she made her debut in the straight theatre with appearances in Trelawny Of The Wells and Relative Values. 

Since 1995, Sarah has toured several times with Placido Domingo, and she has appeared in Christmas In Vienna. Based mostly in Germany in the 90s, Brightman continued to perform in Australia, Canada, America and elsewhere. In 1997 her duet with the blind Tuscan tenor Andrea Bocelli, Time To Say Goodbye, topped the charts throughout Europe. In the same year, her tour of the UK, in company with the English National Orchestra, included a concert at London's Royal Albert Hall. She had another surprise UK hit single in 1997 when Timeless went near the top of the charts. She also established herself as a bestselling diva in the USA with albums such as Time To Say Goodbye and Eden . Other solo albums include The Trees They Grow So High, The Songs That Got Away, As I Come of Age, Dive, Fly, The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection and La Luna.

 

CDs