Popstar to Operastar

The show is an opera-singing competition in which eight celebrity singers who are known for singing pop music compete through the competition and try to win the title of the show. Each week they are trained by professional opera stars (mentors); who teach them how to sing opera. The acts all perform live, giving a performance of their operatic song in an effort to impress the public, who will vote for them to keep them in the competition. Each performance is shown both live on television and in front of a live studio audience. The two singers with the fewest public votes are in the bottom two and get the chance to sing again, however their previous performance are "forgiven and forgotten" and the judges vote based on their sing-off performance who should stay and go. During the first series, if the judges vote went to a tie, it would go down to the public vote, however during series two the head judge will get to decide who stays in the competition after the sing off, if it is a tie. The head judge changed every week. However, if the judges vote against the contestant to stay in the competition they will be eliminated. A proportion of the revenue from the telephone votes is donated to the Nordoff-Robbins music therapy charity.[3]

Series 2 new judges, Vanessa-Mae and Simon Callow

Once the show had been announced, there was a lot of speculation over who would be on the judging panel. However, it was later confirmed that the show's judges were to be Katherine Jenkins, who would also mentor the contestants, and Rolando Villazón who would mentor as well. Meat Loaf and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen were also confirmed to be judge critics, who would judge the contestant's performances only and not mentor the acts. All of the four judges critique each performance.

Jenkins and Villazón mentor the acts, training the pop stars in the art of opera singing; bringing them out their comfort zone and training them to sing in an operatic voice.

It was then later confirmed that Myleene Klass would present the show, however she was revealed as a co-host and Alan Titchmarsh was confirmed to be the other co-host of the show and they would present it together. However, after series 1, Alan Titchmarsh confirmed that he would not return as the co-host of the show and Klass would present the show as a solo presenter.

After series one, it was confirmed that Meat Loaf and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen would not be returning as judges and would instead be replaced by Vanessa-Mae and Simon Callow.

• Popstar to Operastar at itv.com
• Popstar to Operastar at stv.tv