Dame Kiri Jeanette Claire Te Kanawa,, is a New Zealand opera singer. She had a full lyric soprano voice, which has been described as "mellow yet vibrant, warm, ample and unforced". Her extensive discography includes three albums which featured in the top forty in charts in Australia in the mid-1980s.
Renée Lynn Fleming is an American soprano, known for performances in opera, concerts, recordings, theater, film, and at major public occasions. A recipient of the National Medal of Arts, Fleming has been nominated for 18 Grammy Awards and has won five times. In June 2023, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced that Fleming would be one of the five artists recognized at the 2023 Kennedy Center Honors, which she received in December 2023. Other notable honors won by Fleming have included the Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur from the French government, Germany's Cross of the Order of Merit, Sweden's Polar Music Prize and honorary membership in England's Royal Academy of Music. Unusual among artists whose careers began in opera, Fleming has achieved name recognition beyond the classical music world. In May, 2023, Fleming was appointed by the World Health Organization as a Goodwill Ambassador for Arts and Health.
Vesselina Kasarova is a Bulgarian operatic mezzo-soprano.
Cheryl Studer is an American dramatic soprano who has sung at many of the world's foremost opera houses. Studer has performed more than eighty roles ranging from the dramatic repertoire to roles more commonly associated with lyric sopranos and coloratura sopranos, and, in her late stage, mezzo-sopranos. She is particularly known for her interpretations of the works of Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner.
Régine Crespin was a French singer who had a major international career in opera and on the concert stage between 1950 and 1989. She started her career singing roles in the dramatic soprano and spinto soprano repertoire, drawing particular acclaim singing Wagner and Strauss heroines. She went on to sing a wider repertoire that embraced Italian, French, German, and Russian opera from a variety of musical periods. In the early 1970s Crespin began experiencing vocal difficulties for the first time and ultimately began performing roles from the mezzo-soprano repertoire. Throughout her career she was widely admired for the elegance, warmth and subtlety of her singing, especially in the French and German operatic repertories.
Margaret Valerie Masterson is a retired English opera singer, a lecturer and Vice-President of British Youth Opera. After study in Italy, she began to sing opera in Europe. Returning to England, Masterson performed as principal soprano with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company from 1964 to 1969, becoming popular with audiences and participating in several of the company's recordings, as well as those of Gilbert and Sullivan for All and the BBC.
Rita Gorr was a Belgian operatic mezzo-soprano. She possessed a large, rich-toned voice and was an intense singing-actress, especially in dramatic roles such as Ortrud (Lohengrin) and Amneris (Aida), two of her greatest roles.
Elizabeth Harwood was an English lyric soprano. After a music school, she enjoyed an operatic career lasting for over two decades and worked with such conductors as Colin Davis and Herbert von Karajan. She was one of the few English singers of her generation to be invited to sing in productions at the Salzburg Festival and La Scala, Milan, as well as at the Metropolitan Opera.
Jennifer Brigit Vyvyan was a British classical soprano who had an active international career in operas, concerts, and recitals from 1948 up until her death in 1974. She possessed a beautifully clear, steady voice with considerable flexibility in florid music. She was praised for her subtle phrasing and her dramatic gifts enabled her to create vivid individual portrayals. Although she sang a broad repertoire, she is particularly remembered for her association with the works of Benjamin Britten; notably singing roles created for her in the world premieres of several of his operas with the English Opera Group.
Rose Bampton was an American opera singer who had an active international career during the 1930s and 1940s. She began her professional career performing mostly minor roles from the mezzo-soprano repertoire in 1929 but later switched to singing primarily leading soprano roles in 1937 until her retirement from the opera stage in 1963.
Barbara Fris is a Canadian soprano and actress who performs as an opera singer, concert artist, and recitalist. She specializes in opera and classical symphonic works for voice, having performed across Canada, in Europe and the United States where she also has sung a wide range of works that include operettas, musical theatre, light classics, lieder, French mélodie, and art songs.
Blanche Thebom was an American operatic mezzo-soprano, voice teacher, and opera director. She was part of the first wave of American opera singers that had highly successful international careers. In her own country she had a long association with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City which lasted 22 years. Opera News stated, "An ambitious beauty with a velvety, even-grained dramatic mezzo, Thebom was a natural for opera: she commanded the stage with the elegantly disciplined hauteur of an old-school diva, relishing the opportunity to play femmes du monde such as Marina in Boris Godunov, Herodias and Dalila."
Irina Petrovna Bogacheva was a Russian mezzo-soprano at the Mariinsky Theatre and a professor of voice at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Trained in Leningrad and at La Scala in Milan, she performed leading roles of the Russian and Italian repertoire at major international opera houses. Dmitri Shostakovich composed his Six Poems by Marina Tsvetayeva for her.
Sylvia Gwendoline Victoria Fisher was an Australian operatic soprano whose stage career was made in England, who was especially distinguished in German opera, and who created the role of Miss Wingrave in Benjamin Britten's Owen Wingrave in 1971. Fisher was made a Member of the Order of Australia in the 1994 Australia Day Honours, for "service to the arts, particularly opera".
Viorica Cortez is a noted Romanian-born mezzo-soprano, later French by naturalisation. Starting her operatic and concert career in the mid-1960s, she went on to become one of the most prominent female performers of the '70s and '80s. An example of professional longevity, she is present on some of the most prestigious European opera scenes.
Clamma Churita Dale is an American operatic soprano. She portrayed "Bess" in the highly successful 1976 Houston Grand Opera production of Porgy and Bess. The show was transferred from Houston to Broadway and Dale was awarded a 1977 Drama Desk Award for Best Actress in a musical and received a Tony Award nomination. She won a Grammy award in 1978 for Best Opera Recording of the Porgy & Bess soundtrack.
Sonya Yoncheva is a Bulgarian operatic soprano.
Marie Wilt was an Austrian dramatic coloratura soprano. Possessing a wide vocal range with a significant amount of power and flexibility, Wilt sang a wide repertoire that encompassed the operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the German operas of Richard Wagner, the grand operas of Giuseppe Verdi, and the bel canto operas of Bellini, Rossini, and Donizetti. She sang for many years at the Vienna Hofoper and for a number of seasons at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London. She notably portrayed the role of Sulamith in the world premiere of Karl Goldmark's Die Königin von Saba in 1875. Also a regular performer of the concert repertoire, Wilt often appeared in performances of works by Beethoven, Haydn, and Mendelssohn.
Magdaléna Hajóssyová is a classical Slovak soprano who has had an active international career singing in operas, concerts, and recitals since the late 1960s. She has been particularly active at the Prague State Opera where she has been a principal artist since 1972. She has also had a long and fruitful partnership with the Berlin State Opera beginning in 1975. In 1977, 1981, and 1987, she won the Berlin Critic's Prize for her portrayal of the roles of Margarete in Charles Gounod's Faust, the Elektra in Mozart's Idomeneo, Carl Maria von Weber's Euryanthe, and Christoph Willibald Gluck's Iphigénie en Aulide.
Youngmi Kim is a South Korean soprano opera singer. Born in Daegu, South Korea, Kim is a famous vocalist who has sung in operas and concerts internationally and has appeared on television shows, primarily in South Korea.
