After a career that’s lasted four decades, she’s decided to say goodbye to live shows – and maybe the trademark black horn-rimmed specs – to concentrate on her family and her humanitarian work.

She found fame via the Greek national song contest and later became something of a patron saint of the Eurovision Song Contest, first representing Luxembourg in 1963 because her native land didn’t enter because it didn’t have television.

She made a guest appearance at the 2006 contest in Athens, the first time and only time it was held in Greece.

Over the course of her career she’s sold a reported 300 million copies of her 450 albums, earning 230 gold and platinum discs worldwide.

She was due to play further U.K. shows in Gateshead, London, Manchester, Glasgow and Birmingham, before heading off to Germany and mainland Europe.

The 73-year-old star will start in Saarbrucken in Germany, where the world first took notice of her commercial potential. Her German-language version of “White Rose From Athens” sold more than a million copies.

Mouskouri was appointed as a Unicef Goodwill Ambassador in 1993, undertaking a mission to visit children in Bosnia.

The following year she was elected as a member of the European parliament, representing the right wing Greek New Democracy party. She claims she didn’t enjoy politics and only served one term.