What: Sarah Brightman

When: Tonight, 7:30 p.m.

Where: Copps Coliseum

Tickets: $55 and $89.50, available at Copps Coliseum box office, ticketmaster.ca or 905-527-7666

English singer Sarah Brightman is back in Canada and says she's thrilled to return to the country that was one of the first to embrace her music.

But while she loves Canada's culture and food, and says she felt like she "became part of the city" while shooting a movie in Toronto last year, don't expect to see the world's bestselling soprano on the streets too much.

She had her first taste of Canadian winter when she arrived in Montreal on Tuesday and immediately sequestered herself indoors to save her voice for her national tour.

"It's quite snowy out there and quite cold, and I thought rather than risk getting a sore throat or something I'd stay in," Brightman said during a telephone interview from her hotel room.

After Montreal, Brightman is playing another nine shows across the country -- last night in Ottawa, tonight at Copps Coliseum, then Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Victoria.

The 48-year-old singer started out performing disco as a teenager in the late '70s before turning to theatre a few years later. She became the muse of Andrew Lloyd Webber, whom she married in 1984, and his adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera was written for her to sing.

The couple divorced in 1990 and it was in the years after that that she turned her attention to working as a recording artist. Her 18 albums have sold in excess of 27 million copies.

"It was French Canada, actually, that were the first ones to pick up on my work, there and Taiwan," Brightman said.

"I've been coming back and having success really in Canada for a long time now, so I love to come over here and do lots of concerts -- I love the country."

After a five-year break without a new album, Brightman released two discs this year, Symphony and Winter Symphony, the latter being a holiday-themed CD.

"I wanted to create, I suppose, an album with pieces on it that would be emotional for people, from melancholic to very party-going and spiritual (themes). All of those things that remind us of this time of year."

Her concerts include a segment of holiday songs and a new high-tech stage production to accompany her singing.

"We're able to actually create 3-D moving worlds onstage, with me within them, and in a blink of an eye they just appear -- which is very different to these very big moving sets I had before," she said.

"I think that people come to expect, apart from listening to the music, other (theatrical) things as well that complement it in a visual sense .... They've come to expect that visual treat as well with my concerts, so that's what I go out and do."