Brightman says ceremony moved her to tears

By Belinda Goldsmith

BEIJING, Aug 9 (Reuters Life!) - British soprano Sarah Brightman doesn't cry often, so she was surprised to find herself moved to tears before singing at the Olympics opening ceremony.

Brightman, dressed in a long white Versace dress, sang the Game's theme song "You and Me" with Chinese singer Liu Huan from the top of a huge globe as fireworks exploded across Beijing.

The 47-year-old performer, one of the popular crossover singers appealing to pop and classical fans and a regular at large crowd events, said she was not nervous until the moment came to sing for the estimated audience of one billion people.

"When I came out of the globe I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes," she told Reuters in an interview in her Beijing hotel on the day after the opening ceremony.

"There was this amazing feeling in the atmosphere and there were just hundreds of people who worked so hard, put their heart and soul in it, to make it look the way that it did. All of that together was just incredibly emotional."

Brightman, who also performed the theme song to the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 with Spanish tenor Jose Carreras, said she was honored to be the only international performer in the Beijing ceremony, representing friendship with the Western world.

"I think it was important for the Chinese to have an international artist involved and for me it felt right to have an international face in there," she said.

Brightman, who lives in the United States, had only two weeks to prepare the song composed by China's Chen Qigang during which time she had to master singing some Mandarin words and keep a Chinese traditional feeling to her voice with less vibrato.

The song was one of the closely held secrets of the opening ceremony, along with the manner of lighting the Olympic cauldron.

Brightman said she was surprised but relieved that the secret did not leak out, particularly after a South Korean television station broadcast secretly filmed portions of a dress rehearsal for the Beijing ceremony that hit the Internet.

"It is wonderful to have a surprise especially when the people putting it on have put so much into it. You have to respect their wishes," she said.

Brightman, who was once married to British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, said she was probably chosen to sing as she is experienced at performing to huge crowds and the rush to get ready meant she was not nervous -- until the night.

"There wasn't time to get nervous before ... but it's the most emotional feeling I've had at a big scale event," she said.

(Editing by Keith Weir)

(For more stories visit our multimedia website "2008 Summer Olympics" here; and see our blog at blogs.reuters.com/china)