Puccini: Bimba dagli occhi pieni di malia (from Madama Butterfly)

Armenian soprano Karine Babajanyan has made an international impact as Cio-Cio San in numerous Madama Butterfly productions and is one of today's outstanding performers of Puccini’s divas.

“Karine Babajanyan succeeds not only acting wise but also gives us a musically complex portrayal of the title heroin...” the press wrote about her debut at the Opera House Graz as Cio-Cio-San, a role she has since performed at the New National Theatre Tokyo, the Hamburg State Opera, the Opera House Frankfurt, the State Theatres of Saarbrucken and Wiesbaden, and at the Stuttgart State Opera.

Karine Babajanyan began her musical education with piano lessons at the age of seven and continued with singing and choir direction studies at the Erivan City Conservatory, graduating with distinction. After participating in master classes in Italy the young artist returned to her native country. Here, she received her first engagement at the Armenian National Opera.

The versatile artist is hailed by both the press and the public for her “…warm-timbred, youthful dramatic voice…” in all the important roles of her repertoire e.g. the Contessa in ‘Le nozze di Figaro’, Fiordiligi in ‘Cosi fan tutte’, Mimi in ‘La Bohéme’, Leonora in ‘Il Trovatore’, just to name a few.

In 2007 the attractive soprano made her widely noticed debut as Tosca at the Bregenz Festival in Austria – seen by cinema-goers worldwide in the opera scene in the James Bond film ‘Quantum Of Solace’.

Further guest performances took Karine to the Aalto Theatre in Essen, the Mannheim National Theatre, to Bern, Basle, Oslo, Dorset and Mexico, where she keeps celebrating triumphs in roles such as Tatjana (Eugen Onegin), Norma, Leonora (La forza del destino), Maria (Mazeppa)‚ Maddalena (Andrea Chénier) and the press comments “not only is her voice true, powerful and beautiful, but she has that natural presence with which only few are blessed”.

“There was great excitement at the British debut of Armenian soprano Karine Babajanyan in the title role, and she fully satisfied the anticipation. She has attracted rave reviews in Germany, Switzerland and Israel, and local audiences were indeed fortunate to see this remarkable singer so early in her career. Not only is her voice true, powerful and beautiful, but she has that natural presence with which only few are blessed, and her performance was magnetic” Blackmore Vale Magazine on Karine Babajanyan’s UK debut in Norma with Dorset Opera

Soprano Margaret Burke Sheridan (1889-1958) is Ireland's most enduring legend of the operatic stage. Born in Castlebar, County Mayo, she was orphaned at the age of eleven yet, by the time she was 29, Margaret Burke Sheridan made a dramatic debut on the professional stage. At four days' notice, still in vocal training, she was chosen to replace the indisposed soprano as Mimi in Puccini's La Bohème at Rome's Costanzi.

She performed with all the greats, including the tenors Aureliano Pertile and Beniamino Gigli, and conductor Arturo Toscanini, and was coached by Puccini himself. Singing on stages throughout the world, among them Covent Garden, in Milan and Naples, and at the prestigious Carnivale season at Rimini, Margaret Burke Sheridan ultimately retired early due to a combination of tragic personal and professional circumstances. There followed a long and desultory retirement in Dublin where, as one acquaintance noted, she became "an alien among her own, outrageous and witty." She died on 16th April 1958 and is buried in Glasnevin cemetery, Dublin.

Un Bel Di contains fifteen digitally remastered tracks including a live performance from Covent Garden in 1926 and five ballads never brought together on one CD before. This is truly the definitive Margaret Burke Sheridan collection.

This is a specially priced 2CD portrait of the great German tenor, Peter Anders.

These recordings were made at the height of his career and have never been released before. Included are works by Wagner, Strauss, Beethoven, Schumann and Tchaikovsky.

Recorded in Munich in 1971

2 CDs for the price of 1

This new release entited Classical Love Songs on Profil is a compilation of the most beautiful love songs by Mozart, Schumann, Brahms, Rossini, Donizetti and many more.

The songs are sung by an exceptional array of artists including Fritz Wunderlich, Rudolf Schock, Hermann Prey, Richard Tauber, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Joseph Schmidt, Anneliese Rothenberger and Heinz Hoppe.