EURO 2008 INFO

Soprano Natasha Marsh tells Adam Sweeting how her tonsil-twisting aria will match the drama of the football

All manner of horrors lurk behind the phrase "football songs", with echoes of the England squad's 1970 atrocity Back Home or Fat Les's oafish Vindaloo from 1998.

Happily, next month's England-free Euro 2008 championship should prove more uplifting, since ITV has commissioned soprano Natasha Marsh to sing its tournament theme tune, Mozart's Queen of the Night aria from The Magic Flute.

"ITV picked this particular aria because some of the games are being played in Austria, which is Mozart's birthplace," says Brecon?born Marsh, who is in the middle of a Scandinavian tour with Britain's Got Talent chartbuster Paul Potts.

"I think Mozart is quite daring for television - baroque music works brilliantly and so does Puccini and some of the heavier romantic stuff, but to pick a classical style of composer is definitely a challenge."

No football theme will ever upstage the earth-shaking impact of Luciano Pavarotti singing Nessun Dorma at the 1990 World Cup, but Football Bloke would doubtless prefer to ogle the blonde and willowy Marsh rather than the portly maestro, while the Queen of the Night aria is a terrifying tonsil-twister that could never be mistaken for Muzak.

Despite her crossover adventures with the likes of Russell Watson and Il Divo, Marsh is a "real" soprano who has performed in the likes of Carmen, Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute itself.

"I've sung Pamina in opera houses all round Europe, but I'm not a Queen of the Night, with those stratospheric top Fs," she stresses. "So I told ITV we'd have to do an adaptation, because it's not my role. We changed the key, obviously, then they found an arranger to add a different take on it. It's a little bit more brass-heavy than Mozart's original and the orchestration is different. It gives it a more epic quality."

Oh well, it would be farcical to expect ITV to use a version played on authentic 18th-century instruments and conducted from the harpsichord by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. It's the sweeping passions and the human drama they're after.

Marsh, whose music teacher-father and two brothers are fanatical fans of Watford FC, has spent many a Saturday afternoon jumping up and down on the terraces. "You can say it's a cliché, but I think the combination of sport and classical music works really well," she insists. "There's that sort of release that everybody's waiting for with scoring a goal, and it's the same with hitting a high note. Everybody's waiting for that moment, and then everybody feels the goosebump factor."

Classical singers can always get themselves a gig at grand sporting occasions these days. Katherine Jenkins and Lesley Garrett did the honours at the FA Cup final, while Marsh herself was at Wembley in February to sing the National Anthem at the Carling Cup Final.

She won't pick favourites for Euro 2008, "but I think Italy are amazing and wonderful to watch, though they stay down too long when they're injured. Wussy footballers lying around and not getting up, that drives me insane."

She'll have more pressing issues on her mind, with performances at the Grassington and Henley festivals coming up, and the release of her second album for EMI on June 23. Once again, the disc will be a mix of classical pieces with "tracks that are new and more crossovery".

If touring with Paul Potts has taught her anything, it's that "people like music to heal them and they don't want to be told what is real music or serious music. If it heals them and moves them in some way, that's it - you've done the business."

Music as magic sponge, if you will.