Maria Callas
Maria Callas (December 2, 1923 – September 16, 1977) was an America-born Greek soprano and perhaps the most renowned opera singer of the 1950s. She combined an impressive bel canto technique with great dramatic gifts. An extremely versatile singer, her repertoire ranged from classical opera seria to the bel canto operas of Donizetti, Bellini, and Rossini, and further, to the works of Verdi and Puccini, and in her early career, the music dramas of Wagner. Her remarkable musical and dramatic talents led to her being hailed La Divina.
Habanera from CARMEN
Leontyne Price
Mary Violet Leontyne Price (born February 10, 1927) is an American opera singer (soprano). She was best known for her Verdi roles, above all the title role of Aida. An African American born in the segregated South, she rose to international fame in the 1950s and 60s, and became the first black "superstar" at the once-segregated Metropolitan Opera. For almost 40 years, she was one of America's most beloved and widely recorded sopranos.
Price was a leading interpreter of the lirico spinto (Italian for "pushed lyric", or middleweight) roles of Guiseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini, as well as of roles in several operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Her voice ranged from A flat below Middle C to the E above High C. She said she sang high Fs "in the shower.") The voice is noted for its brilliant upper register, the smoky huskiness in the middle and lower registers (sounding almost like a contralto), its smooth "legato" phrasing, and wide dynamic range. She herself called her singing "soul in opera."
Panis Angelicus.......a sacred aria
Anna Moffo
Anna Moffo (June 27, 1932 - March 9, 2006) was an Italian-American opera singer, one of the leading dramatic-coloratura sopranos of her era, she possessed a warm and radiant voice of considerable range and agility, and was an affecting singing-actress of great physical beauty, and thus completely believable on stage and screen in the roles she played.
Manon from LESCAUT MANON
Montserrat Caballe
Maria de Montserrat Viviana Concepció Caballé i Folc, better known as Montserrat Caballé (born 12 April 1933), is a Spanis Catalan operatic soprano renowned for her bel canto technique and her interpretations of the roles of Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti.
Vissi d' Arte from TOSCA
Kiri Te Kanawa
Dame Kiri Janette Te Kanawa, (born March 6, 1944) is a full lyric soprano from New Zealand. In 1981, she was seen and heard around the world by an estimated 600 million people when she sang Handel's "Let the Bright Seraphim" at the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer.
O Mio Babbino Caro from GIANNI SCHICCHI
Jessye Norman
Jessye Norman (born September 15, 1945) is a four-time Grammy Award-winning African American opera singer. Norman is one of the most admired contemporary opera singers and recitalists, and is one of the highest paid performers in classical music. A true dramatic soprano with a majestic stage presence, Norman is associated in particular with the roles of Aïda, Cassandre, Alceste, and Leonora in Fidelio. Norman is known for the direct and emotionally expressive qualities of her singing and for her formidable intellectual understanding of the music and its style, as well as first-rate musicianship.