Puccini: Nessun dorma (from Turandot)

Although no longer a regular guest, José Carreras was in the 1970s and ’80s one of the great, up-and-coming singers and he returns in 2012 once more for a song recital in Salzburg on August 30. Accompanied here by Edoardo Müller, his recital of 1981 takes us from the French song with piano by Massenet and Fauré via the tenor “classics” of Tosti to the canciones of De Falla, Mompou and Turina – and all sung with a secure sense of style and with great subtlety.

Carreras’s encores delighted adherents of the brilliant tenor repertoire, and can be appreciated on this recording too.

Blessed with “a golden-age voice” (The Sunday Times) that routinely inspires comparisons with legendary singers from earlier eras, Joseph Calleja will follow the success of The Maltese Tenor with a tribute to one of the most popular tenors of all time; the unique “crossover” star of the Hollywood musical – Mario Lanza.

This is an album that Joseph Calleja has always wanted to record. As a youth in Malta he saw Lanza in the cult film The Great Caruso and was so captivated that he gave up his predilection for Metallica and Iron Maiden and decided to become an opera singer

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.

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