Puccini: Signore, ascolta! (from Turandot)

The glamorous soprano Kiri Te Kanawa was born in 1944 in Gisborne, on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand. After winning a number of major vocal competitions in Australia, she came to London in 1966 to study singing at the London Opera Centre, where she trained for three years. Then in 1970 she was accepted by the Royal Opera at Covent Garden as a junior member of the company. Her big break came in 1971, when she was chosen to sing the Countess in a new production of Le nozze di Figaro.. It was something of a gamble for the Covent Garden management to cast an inexperienced singer in such an important role, but on the opening night Kiri’s performance stole the show.

After the Covent Garden Nozze di Figaro, an international career was assured. With a carefully chosen repertoire that included the principal soprano roles of Mozart, as well as a number of Verdi, Puccini and Richard Strauss heroines, Kiri went on to triumph in the major opera houses of the world. She first appeared at the Salzburg Festival in 1979 and became a regular and much-loved performer at Glyndebourne, a venue for which she has a particularly strong affection, and in 1981 Kiri was chosen to sing at the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in St Paul's Cathedral, an event seen by a world-wide television audience estimated at more than 600 million people

Not surprisingly, her vibrant but creamy voice, together with her attractive stage presence, made her an ideal interpreter of the main Richard Strauss roles, and it was not long before she was singing the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, a part with which she scored a particular success. After a number of popular Italian and French arias, Kiriis heard in this programme in the Marschallin's Act I monologue, 'Da geht er hin', as well as in arias from several other German operas, including Wagner's Tannhäuser, Der Freischutz by Weber and Korngold's unjustly neglected romantic masterpiece Die tote Stadt. As a brief reminder of Kiri's achievements on the concert stage, the first CD closes with three orchestral songs by the French composers Ravel and Duparc, all of which show off the lustrous beauty of her voice to full advantage.

In addition to opera and so-called serious music however, Kiri is also a great enthusiast for the lighter repertoire, including folk music and the songs of Broadway and Tin Pan Alley. When performing this material, she uses the warm, lower part of her rich voice to give idiomatic performances of songs by some of America's greatest composers of popular music, such as George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin and Cole Porter. Also heard here are Franz Gruber's familiar Christmas carol 'Silent Night' and a number of traditional British folk songs. These are followed by two Maori songs, in which Kiri is joined by a group of Maori singers and a number of specialist musicians who together capture the authentic style of these fascinating pieces.

Cheryl Barker first broke the hearts of audiences worldwide as Mimì in Baz Luhrman’s imaginative production of La bohème. In Puccini ≡ Passion the radiant Australian soprano delivers beguiling performances in a panoply of Puccini’s heroines in favourite arias, accompanied by the State Orchestra of Victoria under the baton of Richard Bonynge.

Opera expert Rodney Milnes comments in the booklet: “Puccini famously liked to write about "little women", but he gave them "big" music, which is one thing that makes Cheryl Barker so ideal an interpreter of his soprano roles ... her lyric soprano, with an indefinably sweet vibrancy built in to the tone, adds immeasurably to her appeal. With that vibrancy comes a sense of vulnerability, which helps her bring the characters alive in both vocal and dramatic terms ... This most welcome disc allows her to present an overview of Puccini's women from the very beginning.”

Issued for the first time on SACD, this disc is for all lovers of Puccini, encompassing his most popular soprano arias from Manon Lescaut, Tosca, La bohème and Madama Butterfly, one of Barker’s favourite roles, as well as arias from Le Villi, Edgar, La rondine, Suor Angelica, Gianni Schicci and Turandot. Barker ends with two little known treasures, the folksong-like ‘E l’uccellino’, and ‘Sole e amore’, an 1888 song whose melody Puccini later re-used in La bohème. And in a departure from his usual repertoire Richard Bonynge brings fresh imagination and sparkle to Puccini’s masterful orchestral palette.

Cheryl Barker’s most recent CD, also for Melba and released in 2011, was Pure Diva (MR301129), a very personal tribute to her teacher and fellow Australian soprano, the great Dame Joan Hammond.

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’.

The greatest opera stars in the world - together in one 2-CD set.

A unique collection of all the great genuine opera stars appearing on the world's stages today.

A galaxy of great names performing opera's best-loved arias and classic melodies.

CD 1 ("The Divos") features celebrated performances from Roberto Alagna, Juan Diego Flórez, Jonas Kaufmann, Plácido Domingo, Bryn Terfel, José Carreras, Josef Calleja and Erwin Schrott

CD 2 ("The Divas") features outstanding recordings by Cecilia Bartoli, Renée Fleming, Anna Netrebko, Angela Gheorghiu, Montserrat Caballé, Nicole Cabell, Olga Borodina, and Kiri te Kanawa

A fabulous showcase of today's top vocal talent

2 CDs for the price of one

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