Dame Julie was famed for her four-octave vocal range

Dame Julie, famed for her role as Mary Poppins, shot musical scenes for The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement.

In it she sings a song called Your Crowning Glory, which was written in a limited vocal range so it was not too demanding on her recovering voice.

Dame Julie settled a malpractice claim with two doctors at New York's Mount Sinai hospital over the operation.

Last year, Dame Julie said she doubted she would ever sing in public again because her voice had still not recovered.

Emotional moment

Dawn Soler, the film's music supervisor, said she was there when the actress pre-recorded the song and sang it to playback during filming.

She said: "She nailed the song on the first take. I looked around and I saw grips with tears in their eyes."

Dame Julie has done some limited singing on TV in recent years, but her manager, Steve Sauer, said those songs were "half-talking, half-singing".

In Princess Diaries 2 Dame Julie sings, but with a far more limited vocal range than she was once capable of.

'Tranquil' song

Composer Larry Grossman, "It's written in just one octave, so it wouldn't be vocally demanding.

"I've worked with Julie, and I knew what she was capable of. This does not reflect that; it's more of a tranquil song. She told me it works beautifully."

Dame Julie, 68, moved to Hollywood with what she called her "freak four-octave voice" and starred in hit musicals Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music.

Andrews was singing in the Broadway version of her Victor/Victoria film role in the mid-1990s when she began having voice trouble and underwent surgery.