SARAH Brightman, the versatile singer who shifts freely between opera, musicals, trip hop and folk songs, is to give a solo concert in Shanghai in June. The event will be part of a global tour promoting her new album "Harem".

Brightman will take the Persian musical theme in the album as the inspiration for her image. The costumes, lighting and dance design will all refer to the Arabian Nights tales.

Brightman has changed her schedule for the tour in Europe in order to spare time for her Asian tour. Her Asian tour will start in Hong Kong on May 28 and the global tour starting from America will have 85 shows in total.

A very elaborate stage design will be adopted, costing US$2 million. The organizer of the China show has promised the audience not only a night of great music but also a brilliant fashion and dance show.

From the boxing ring to Broadway and from the Olympic Games to the Rathaus in Vienna, Brightman has demonstrated in the course of her career a singular versatility in her approach to musical performance.

Once a member of the pop group Hot Gossip, she has since gone on to appear in such hit musicals at Cats and Phantom of the Opera, as well as to perform with such notable artists as Placido Domingo, Helmut Lotti and Riccardo Cocciante.

Although her marriage to musical giant Andrew Lloyd Webber failed after seven years, the two went on working together and her singing career went on to prosper.

"Being varied is something I do instinctively and naturally. I feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment. Everything is in tune: the voice, the type of music, who I am and who people think I am," Brightman once said on the diversity of her material.

As a child, Brightman was exposed to an eclectic assortment of music, for hers was a household where Tom Jones and Tchaikovsky got equal billing and airtime.

Now the singer Brightman has broken musical ground by fusing seemingly incongruous genres; gliding seamlessly between pop and classical, dance and trip-hop, Gregorian chants and Eastern refrains.

Her concert in Shanghai has outrageously high ticket price between 2,500 and 380 yuan, but "hardcore" fans have bought tickets worth 2 million yuan in just one week.

Shanghai Grand Stage

1111 Caoxi Beilu

Tel: 6652-7750

7:30pm, June 4

380-2,500 yuan

Ticket Hotline: 6377-1099