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One of the best-known conductors of the last quarter of the 20th century, Zubin Mehta is known for his flamboyant, passionate style on the podium. A conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestras for many years, he has appeared with orchestras all over the world and has sought to use classical music as a force for peace in troubled regions.

Mehta was born in Bombay (now Mumbai), in British-controlled India, on April 29, 1936. His first language was Gujarati, and the family adhered to the Parsi religion. His father, Mehli Mehta, was a violinist and conductor who co-founded the Bombay Symphony Orchestra. Part of the key to Zubin's later confidence and success as a conductor is that he began very early; his father taught him to play violin and piano and to conduct, and from his early teens, he was leading sectional rehearsals with the Bombay Symphony; he took rehearsals with the entire ensemble at 16. Mehta's mother wanted him to study medicine, and he enrolled at St. Xavier's College, Bombay, with that aim, but after two years, he dropped out and moved to Vienna, Austria. Living on a shoestring, he took conducting lessons from Hans Swarowsky at the Vienna Academy of Music and learned the double bass so he could find orchestral work. After winning a contest, he received a one-year appointment as the assistant conductor with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. This led to prestigious guest conducting posts with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra and then, in 1960 and 1962, respectively, to music director posts with the Montreal Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. For the former post, he had help from Charles Munch, whom he had impressed at a contest at the Tanglewood Music Festival. The jet-setting conductor who holds posts in far-flung cities has become commonplace, but Mehta was one of the first whose career followed the pattern. He built the Los Angeles Philharmonic into one of the major U.S. orchestras.

Mehta resigned his Montreal post in 1967, beginning a long association with the Israel Philharmonic that came to an end only in 2017. An early recording was one of Puccini's Tosca, starring soprano Leontyne Price, for the RCA label in 1973. Mehta left the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1978, succeeding Pierre Boulez as the music director of the New York Philharmonic. He remained in New York until 1991. Mehta also became the music director of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, entering into the musical life of Florence and later becoming an honorary citizen of that city. The tendency to engage with an orchestra's surroundings rather than simply flying in to conduct could be seen especially clearly in his work with the Israel Philharmonic, which he conducted during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the 1982 Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon (where he conducted for both Israeli and Arab audiences, with the latter receiving him enthusiastically), and the 1991 Gulf War.

Conducting the internationally televised Three Tenors concerts featuring Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo, and José Carreras, Mehta gained wide public exposure for his outsized style, perfectly suited to these concerts. After leaving his New York Philharmonic post, Mehta assumed the music directorship of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich in 1998, remaining in that post until 2006. He also became the music director of the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, Spain, in 2005. During the 1990s and 2000s, Mehta took the opportunity to conduct orchestras and operas in large, one-of-a-kind events. In 1992, he conducted a performance of Puccini's opera Tosca, starring Domingo as Cavaradossi, at the actual places specified in the score in real time. Mehta conducted a similar production of Puccini's Turandot in China in 1998, directed by filmmaker Zhang Yimou, with 300 soldiers and 300 extras.

Mehta's recording catalog is one of the most extensive of any contemporary conductor, comprising well over 200 albums. His output focuses on Romantic orchestral repertory, most often from the second half of the 19th century, but encompasses a startling variety of music, from early American composer John Knowles Paine to Schoenberg to opera and film soundtracks (he led the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Frank Zappa's film 200 Motels in 1971), to Vienna's Summer Night and New Year's concerts. He has rarely recorded contemporary music. Mehta remained active into old age, releasing a new recording of Haydn's oratorio Die Schöpfung, Hob. 21/2, with the Munich Philharmonic in 2021, when he was 85. He conducted the Australian World Orchestra at concerts in Melbourne and Sydney in 2022 and released several new recordings, including one of works by Bruckner and Schumann, featuring pianist Martha Argerich in Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54, with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in 2024. By that time, his catalog comprised some 300 recordings. ~ James Manheim

Montserrat Caballé's career, which began with a legendary lucky break, would eventually make her one of Spain's greatest sopranos -- equaled in status and reputation only by fellow Barcelonian Victoria de los Angeles.

Her full birth name was Maria de Montserrat Viviana Concepción Caballé i Folch. She was named after the famous Catalan monastery of Montserrat. It is said that her parents feared that they would lose her and vowed that if she were born alive and well they would christen her with the monastery's name. She learned singing at her convent school; at the age of eight, she entered the Conservatorio del Liceo in Barcelona. Her most important teachers were Eugenia Kenny, Conchita Badea, and Napoleone Annovazzi. When she graduated in 1954, she won the Liceo's Gold Medal.

Caballé made her professional debut in Madrid in the oratorio El pesebre (The Manger) by the great Catalan cellist Pau (Pablo) Casals. She then went to Italy, where she received a few minor roles at various houses. In 1956, she joined the Basel Opera; she was working her way through the smaller roles when one of the principal singers took ill and she took over the role of Mimì in Puccini's La Bohéme. Her unqualified success in that part led to promotion to starring roles, including Pamina (The Magic Flute), Puccini's Tosca, Verdi's Aïda, Marta in Eugene d'Albert's Tiefland, and the Richard Strauss roles of Arabella, Chrysothemis (Elektra), and Salome. She steadily gained a European reputation, singing in Bremen, Milan, Vienna, Barcelona, and Lisbon, taking such diverse roles as Violetta (La Traviata), Tatiana (Yevgeny Onegin), Dvorák's Armida and Rusalka, and Marie in Berg's Wozzeck. She debuted at La Scala in 1960 as a Flower Maiden in Parsifal. She sang in Mexico City in 1964 as Massenet's Manon.

In April 20, 1965, on extremely short notice, she substituted for the indisposed Marilyn Horne in a concert performance in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia, achieving a thunderous success and "overnight" superstardom. She became one of the leading figures in the revival of interest in the bel canto operas of Bellini and Donizetti, many of which were staged especially for her. Caballé's performances as Elizabeth I (Roberto Devereux) and that monarch's rival Mary Queen of Scots (Maria Stuarda) are legendary. In 1971, she sang a memorable concert performance of Maria Stuarda in which her fellow Barcelonian José Carreras made his London debut, and after that she helped advance his career. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1965 as Marguerite in Faust. Caballé's career centered around Verdi's important dramatic roles, but also embraced the Marschallin (Der Rosenkavalier), the Countess (Marriage of Figaro), and Queen Isabella (in the premiere of Leonardo Balada's Cristobál Colón in Barcelona in 1989).

Caballé had unusual crossover success. In addition to singing on two tracks on an album by new age composer Vangelis, she was famous for collaborating with Freddie Mercury of the rock group Queen, who wrote Exercises in Free Love for her. She appeared on his hit album Barcelona. That album and its primary single rose high on the pop charts.

In 1964, she married Spanish tenor Bernabé Marti. They had two children, Bernabé Marti, Jr. and Montserrat Marti, who is herself a successful soprano. In 1997, Caballé co-founded an important annual vocal competition in the Principality of Andorra, the Concurs Internacional de Cant Montserrat Caballé. She conducted master classes in conjunction with that competition. Caballé gave her last performance in 2014. She died on October 6, 2018, a few weeks after being admitted to the hospital. ~ Joseph Stevenson

One of the most successful and admired opera singers of all time, Luciano Pavarotti was king among tenors from the late 1960s through the 1990s. His voice was noted for its exciting upper register, and tailor-made for the operas of Verdi, Bellini, Donizetti, and Puccini, and as it darkened slightly over the years, for the verismo composers as well. His vocal longevity, which kept him singing youthfully well into his sixties, and still beautifully after that, was a credit to his commanding technique and artistry, and remarkable considering his nearly 40 years of performing.

Pavarotti's father was a baker, and his mother worked in a cigar factory. As a boy, he sang alto in the cathedral choir, and when his voice changed he joined the Modena city choir. He had brief careers as a schoolteacher and an insurance agent; during that time, his major extracurricular activity was not music but soccer, and his play made him a local star. However, increased involvement in the choir (which took prizes in international competitions) led him to pursue vocal studies, and he eventually settled on singing as his aspiration.

Pavarotti studied voice with Arrigo Polo in Modena, then with Ettore Campogalliani in Mantua. His operatic debut was as Rodolfo in La Bohème in Reggio Emilia (April 19, 1961), and soon increasing success led to a debut in Amsterdam on January 18, 1963, as Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor. After singing the same role with Joan Sutherland in Miami in 1965, he was engaged to travel with her in the Sutherland Williamson International Grand Opera Company, touring Australia. In 1966 he appeared at Covent Garden as Tonio in La fille du régiment, where his seemingly effortless handling of the nine successive high Cs in the aria "Pour mon âme" sent his career into high orbit. He repeated the feat at the Metropolitan Opera in 1972, and for more than two decades after that he was a fixture on the operatic scene, appearing in nearly every major European and American house, and even China, where he performed Puccini's La bohème in the 1980s.

Pavarotti appeared in the first "Live from the Met" broadcast on the PBS network and was the most consistent draw on that series for years. His outstanding catalogue of recordings on the London (Decca) record label preserves nearly every role he ever performed and is hard to match for its quality and scope. His charity work included AIDS benefit concerts and world hunger gala events, as well as his "Pavarotti and Friends" concerts to benefit children, especially in the former Yugoslav states. He also founded a quadrennial contest to identify talented young singers and boost their careers. And, as one of the "Three Tenors," he brought operatic singing to a wider popular audience than previously might have been thought possible. In 2003 he released his first solo crossover CD, Ti adoro. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2006, yet remained positive and hopeful of still being able to record and perform until his death.

Ghiaurov's career spanned both the great Russian roles--Boris Gudonov, Khan Konchak, Prince Gremin, Ivan Susanin, Kovanschy, and the great Italian and French roles--King Philip, the Devil in both Mefistofele and Faust, the Padre Guardiano in Forza, Attila , Fiesco, Silva, and Don Quichotte. While a genuine bass, he had a strong enough upper range that he was also a fine Don Giovanni, and could even manage the Toreador Song from Carmen with panache. Though most of the roles he sang were serious ones, he is also a noted performer of Don Basilio in Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Colline in La Boheme, which has the one solemn aria in the last scene, and considerable clowning in the preceeding ones. He brought to these roles a rich and powerful voice, considerable acting ability, and a striking physique. His voice was at its prime during the late 1950s, '60s, and '70s, becoming rather dry by the 1980s, but he was still able to perform some of his roles very ably through the 1990s, leaving the more vocally strenuous ones and relying on a solid technique and his mastery of text and drama. As a singing actor, he avoided extra-musical effects such as sobbing or shouting, instead drawing characterizations from the music and shading nuances into the text.

His family was poor, but when he was a child, his parents encouraged him to sing. When his voice broke during adolescence, he continued to study music, learning to play clarinet, violin, and trombone on borrowed instruments, and he also studied drama, which at that time was his career choice. He was discovered as a singer while serving in the army (where he played clarinet and conducted the chorus), and studied with Christo Brambarov and then at the Moscow Conservatoire. He credits much of his vocal longevity to the fact that he never pushed his voice during those early years--in fact, during his first year of studies he worked on only one octave, doing only vocal exercises. Studying with Brambarov, he learned Italian style as well as Russian style, something of a rarity for Slavic singers at that time.

He made his debut as Don Basilio at the Sofia Opera in 1955 and sang Pimen (in Boris Godunov) at the Bolshoi in 1957. By 1958, he first sang in Italy, through in Faust rather than in an Italian opera. Three years later he made his Covent Garden debut, in 1960 made his La Scala debut as Varlaam in Boris, and in 1965 he first appeared at the Metropolitan. At the Salzburg Festival he sang the lead in Boris Godunov, for the first time, also in 1965. He appeared in many productions and roles at those opera houses, and was also a frequent performer at the Vienna State Opera, the Paris Opera, the Chicago Lyric Opera (where he made his US debut), and many others.

Aside from opera, he frequently performed and recorded Russian songs. He is married to the Italian soprano Mirella Freni, and has participated in guiding her into her forays into the Russian repertoire, notably Tatiana in Eugene Onegin and Lisa in Pique Dame.

He left a wide recorded legacy. Some of the more outstanding include a recital recording on Arkadia (Arkadia 807.1) from 1961 that displays not only his voice but his acting abilities--in the aria "Madamina," from Don Giovanni he produces some of the sleaziest sounds in recorded opera! Decca released a Grandi Voci album devoted to him (Decca 448 248-2) that spans the width of his roles. In complete opera recordings, his Mefistofele (Decca 410 175-2) was recorded too late to capture the full bloom of his voice, but his characterization and dark humor is unforgettable. He made two major recordings of Boris Godunov, the first with von Karajan on Decca, the second with Tchakarov on Sony. The first is the most vocally expansive, the second, made two decades later, is perhaps more mature dramatically. ~ Ann Feeney

The London Philharmonic Orchestra is a central institution of the British classical concert scene, performing major repertory works, British standards, contemporary music, and more. Especially on recordings, the group has also engaged with music from beyond the classical sphere.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra was formed in 1932 in response to a consensus that London's major orchestras, lacking strong artistic leadership, were inferior to those in Germany and even the U.S. So conductor Sir Thomas Beecham assembled a crack membership of 106 players, and the new orchestra was successful from the start. Beecham steered the group through financial difficulties at the beginning of World War II before resigning for health reasons and due to conflicts over the ensemble's artistic direction. Postwar conductors included Eduard van Beinum (1947 to 1951) and Sir Adrian Boult (1951 to 1958); the latter inaugurated an active recording program, releasing albums that remain standards to this day.

In 1966, Bernard Haitink became the orchestra's principal conductor; his tenure, lasting until 1979, was longer than that of any other conductor of the group until Vladimir Jurowski. The orchestra renovated a disused church, renamed it Henry Wood Hall, and began to use the space for rehearsals and recordings in 1975. Haitink's successor was another giant, Sir Georg Solti, who served as principal conductor from 1979 to 1983 and continued as conductor emeritus afterward, often appearing and recording with the orchestra. Solti was succeeded by a trio of Germans, Klaus Tennstedt in 1983, Franz Welser-Möst in 1990, and Kurt Masur in 2000. Welser-Möst officially installed the orchestra as the resident ensemble of the Royal Festival Hall, which remains its main concert venue.

The orchestra has also had numerous guest conductors over the years, and these have been responsible for many of its crossover releases. Although not as active in this field as the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic has made high-visibility film soundtrack recordings. These include soundtracks for such films as Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), The Fly (1986), and the trilogy The Lord of the Rings, as well as the anthology Academy Award Themes (1984). The orchestra has released albums devoted to the music of progressive rock bands Pink Floyd and Yes, and as far back as 1959, it released the album Hawaiian Paradise. In 2011, the London Philharmonic recorded 205 national anthems in preparation for the London Olympic Games of the following year. The orchestra's album releases, classical and otherwise, numbered 280 by 1997 and has increased by well over 250 albums since then; in the year 2001 alone, the orchestra released 21 albums. The London Philharmonic established its own LPO label in the mid-2000s decade and has issued large amounts of music, both classical and not, including Genius of Film Music: Hollywood Blockbusters 1980s to 2000s, in 2018.

In 2007, the London Philharmonic was in the forefront of taking advantage of the wave of talented Russian musicians who had emigrated to the West, installing Vladimir Jurowski as principal conductor. He remained in the post until 2020, becoming the orchestra's longest-serving conductor and leading the group in a 2021 recording of Mahler's Symphony No. 8 ("Symphony of a Thousand"). In 2020, Karina Canellakis became the orchestra's first female principal guest conductor. Jurowski was succeeded in 2021 by Edward Gardner, who became the group's first British principal conductor for decades. ~ James Manheim