Forty-something, Hirano Takoya was in the audience. He had come over from Tokyo to meet his wife who works in Beijing, and was lucky enough to get a ticket.

"Some songs of Brightman make me remember my old days," Hirano told Beijing Review, adding that he has enjoyed her music from a young age, and is fascinated by her beautiful voice.

Brightman's world tour coincides with her promoting the new album Symphony, released in January 2008, which has topped the Billboard music charts in the United States for several weeks and is another move by Brightman to find a new musical style, which she describes as "very Gothic."

Popular Sarah

Despite the acoustics in the venue leaving much to be desired, the concert proved to be a great success, with a turnout of more than 10,000 of all ages.

According to superticket.com.cn, one of the major ticket dealers in Beijing, ticket sales were brisk, with the cheapest being 580 yuan ($76). This is much higher than that of other performers who visit the country, showing the singer's popularity in Beijing. The sales volume of her albums top 26 million worldwide.

Most Chinese know Brightman's music through hit musicals, like Cats and Phantom of the Opera, and she was an unknown entity here until 2004, when she gave her first concert on the mainland as part of her Harem world tour.

But her fame was greatly boosted after her marvelous duet with Liu Huan at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games, during which her heavenly voice was deeply remembered by every Chinese.

This phenomenon was a big surprise to Hirano, who didn't know that Brightman was so popular among younger Chinese.

Wu Jiang, 29, an IT salesman at Xinhua News Agency, was among the young fans. Belonging to the generation born in the 1980s, Wu said that perhaps he was among the youngest of Brightman's fans. He holds that most of the fans of Brightman are middle-aged, as the younger generation now has more choices than their parents.

Wu found himself attracted by the music of Brightman when he happened to listen to Phantom of the Opera, and he likes the theater version and the version where Brightman dueted with Spanish movie star Antonio Banderas most. After that, he began to collect all the albums of Brightman and attended her concert in Beijing in 2004. Compared with the 2004 concert, Wu thinks that the 2009 concert is much better, in terms of the stage sets supported by dazzling special effects.

He also found that now there are more Chinese people who enjoy her music than was the case five years ago. "More and more people would buy tickets themselves, different from the situation in 2004 when most Chinese were used to attending concerts with complimentary tickets," Wu told Beijing Review.

Although he knows that Brightman is trying some new genres of music, he hopes her current style will remain. "Fans cannot accept her change," he said, adding that he is now looking forward to Brightman's third concert visit to Beijing.

And it is not only Beijing where ticket sales were good. It is said that the tickets for her concerts in China's three other big cities, Shanghai, Nanjing and Guangzhou, have also sold well, predicting the big success of Brightman's Symphony China tour this year.