warm glow

London, Dec. 15: Dame Julie Andrews, the Sound of Music actress, has compared the experience of singing after throat surgery to the pleasurable afterglow of sexual intercourse.

Dame Julie expected never to sing again after an operation on her vocal cords in 1997 left them damaged but has found new techniques to manage her music.

She has developed a “sing-speak” style and discovered bass notes which she did not previously use and, after a short series of singing shows in the US which rebuilt her confidence, she will perform a one-off concert at London’s O2 arena this summer that is expected to generate up to £1 million in ticket sales.

In her biography Home, she said singing was “as addictive as opium” and “like sex before the moment of climax”.

Speaking in an interview with Channel 4, she said it still gave her great pleasure but was now “warm, glowing, it’s, if you really want it, it’s that moment after sex when you say: ‘Ah, great’”.

Dame Julie, whose most famous role was as Mary Poppins in the eponymous 1964 film, for which she won an Oscar, and as the following year’s The Sound of Music, in which she played the nun-cum-tutor Maria.

She will read and sing with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and soloists.