Verdi: Celeste Aida (from Aida)

Here is Plácido Domingo’s first glorious contribution to Verdi Year – a wide-ranging anthology of his starring roles, over two hours of glorious singing

From Alfredo's Brindisi to Manrico's Di quella pira, with extended extracts from his parade role, Otello, all the hits and favourites are there (La donna è mobile, Celeste Aida, Quando le sere al lacido, Fontainebleau!, Lunge da lei, Un dì felice, Questo o quella, Ingemisco)

Rarities as well, including selections from Alzira, I due Foscari, Oberto and Il Corsaro

This magnificent collection features the some of the greatest opera stars of all time:

Cecilia Bartoli, Anna Netrebko, Bryn Terfel, Renée Fleming, Andrea Bocelli Luciano Pavarotti, Dame Joan Sutherland, Plácido Domingo, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and José Carreras.

With a carefully chosen selection of perennially popular arias, duets and choruses, this enchanting collection creates the perfect introduction to opera.

With 40 tracks and over 2½ hours of music this collection is outstanding value for money.

Includes Pavarotti’s classic recording of the most popular opera aria of all, Puccini’s ‘Nessun dorma’.

Following the enormous success of the album OPERA 2009, EMI Classics is releasing OPERA 2010. Great voices of today and legendary singers of the past, from the EMI and Virgin Classics catalogue: the home of opera.

With 40 tracks, and over 2½ hours of operatic arias and duets, this double album features the best and most popular names in opera from the catalogues of both Virgin Classics and EMI Classics, ranging from the newest arrivals on the operatic scene, as well as many present day superstars, to iconic legends. This is an unmissable collection of the best in opera that will have a wide appeal.

Present day superstars include Angela Gheorghiu, Natalie Dessay, Sarah Brightman, Barbara Hendricks, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Jessye Norman, Placido Domingo, José Carreras, Rolando Villazón, Roberto Alagna and Bryn Terfel.

Rising new artists are strongly represented by Joyce DiDonato, Diana Damrau, Elina Garanca, Vivica Genaux, Véronique Gens, Patrizia Ciofi, Philippe Jaroussky, Jonas Kaufmann, David Daniels, Max Emanuel Cencic and Laurent Naouri.

The programme also contains tracks by some of the world’s greatest singers of the past such as Victoria de los Angeles, Teresa Berganza, Mirella Freni, Lucia Popp and Franco Corelli as well as the legendary Luciano Pavarotti and the unique Maria Callas.

All the most popular operatic composers are represented, from Baroque masters like Vivaldi, Rameau and Handel, through Gluck and Mozart to Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Puccini, Mascagni, Cilea and Gershwin, as well as French favourites Gounod, Massenet and Offenbach.

The ten sides the Italian tenor Enrico Caruso cut at the Grand Hotel, Milan, on 11 April 1902 are among the most historic of historical recordings.

As John Steane notes in a wide-ranging essay that ideally complements this collection, these are legendary recordings by a legendary tenor. Indeed, Caruso’s fame, according to the old HMV catalogue, was perhaps the greatest ever attained by a singer.

Steane sifts fact from fiction in the story of the producer Fred Gaisberg, wowed by Caruso at La Scala and determined to secure him for his company, agreeing the then huge fee of £100 for the ten arias and then receiving a cable from London that said ‘Fee exorbitant, forbid you to record’.

Whatever the truth of that, the recording went ahead. Caruso came to the Grand Hotel that Friday afternoon ‘dressed like a dandy, twirling a cane’ with his accompanist Salvatore Cottone, and all was completed within two hours in the improvised studio Gaisberg had rigged up.

Again, the new remastering by Abbey Road 78 expert Andrew Walter improves greatly on the recordings’ previous appearance on Références.

Awards: Diapason d’Or, Timbre de Platine d’Opéra International, FFFF de Télérama