���غ���

In the late '90s, mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli was one of the world's most popular singers, for several years eclipsed in album sales only by Luciano Pavarotti, and she remains a beloved figure. Her repertory runs from the Baroque through Mozart and the bel canto roles of the first third of the 19th century. Bartoli's performances and recordings are well-researched as well as beautifully sung, and for a singer of her stature, she has recorded a good deal of little-known music. A new Bartoli compilation, Casta Diva, appeared in 2024.

Bartoli was born in Rome on June 4, 1966. Her parents were both professional singers, and she made her stage debut at nine as a shepherd boy in Puccini's Tosca. Bartoli attended the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome, studying trombone and flirting with a career as a flamenco dancer; her only long-term voice teacher had been her mother. She made her Zurich Opera House debut in 1989 as Cherubino in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro under conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt, a frequent collaborator. That year also saw the release of Bartoli's debut album, Rossini Arias, on the London label. Her star rose rapidly in the early '90s; her debut in New York, where she remains extraordinarily popular, came at a 1990 Mostly Mozart Festival concert. In 1992, she would return to that festival for three sold-out shows.

Charismatic, musically intelligent, and vocally agile (singing both mezzo-soprano and soprano roles), Bartoli made her debut on the coveted stage at Milan, Italy's La Scala, in 1991. Bartoli has called herself a child of the 18th century and has been able to combine vocally spectacular Baroque roles, several times in Vivaldi's comparatively underexposed operas, with limpid Mozart melodies and bel canto through much of her career. Bartoli's Metropolitan Opera debut came in 1996 as Despina in Mozart's Così fan tutte, returning in 1997 in the lead role in Rossini's La Cenerentola, and once again in 1998 as Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro. In the mid-2000s, she devoted herself mostly to Baroque opera, appearing as Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare, and then to bel canto toward the end of the decade, issuing the album Maria, which investigated the career of famed soprano Maria Malibran. The pace of Bartoli's stage appearances and recordings slowed somewhat in the 2010s but remained vigorous. Bartoli became the artistic director of the Salzburg Whitsun Festival in 2012; her appearances there as Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare (2012) and in the title roles of Bellini's Norma (2013) and La Cenerentola (2014), as well as her programming decisions, resulted in record ticket sales for the formerly academically oriented festival.

On recordings, Bartoli has been associated mostly with the London and Decca labels; crossover albums have been notably absent from her large catalog. Bartoli's 2011 album Sacrificium won a Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Performance; it was her fifth Grammy. Some of her albums have included music by lesser-known composers such as Antonio Salieri and Agostino Steffani; her concept album Mission (2012) covered the music and career of the latter. On Decca, she released Antonio Vivaldi, a collection of arias, in 2018. The following year saw the release of Farinelli, an homage to the 18th century castrato singer, on the cover of which Bartoli appeared in drag. Bartoli's 2021 album Unreleased consisted of an unissued 2013 album featuring arias by Beethoven, Josef Mysliveček, Mozart, and Haydn, all written for leading divas of the era. Her 2024 release Casta Diva was a collection of classic and newly recorded Bartoli material; by that time, her recording catalog comprised well over 50 items, many of them complete operas. Bartoli was inducted into the French Order of Arts and Letters in 1995. She has lived with her husband, baritone Oliver Widmer, in Switzerland on Lake Zurich, in Rome, and in Monaco. ~ James Manheim

Baritone Bryn Terfel has been one of the world's most beloved singers since the 1990s. In addition to opera, he has performed and recorded art song, popular music, and songs in the Welsh language with great success.

Terfel was born Bryn Terfel Jones in Pant Glas, Wales, on November 9, 1965. His father was a farmer, and he grew up speaking Welsh. Terfel gained stage experience as a child participating in singing contests, and by the time he entered the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, he was already a seasoned performer. Terfel began using his middle name to avoid confusion with singer Delme Bryn-Jones. Winning two major prizes at Guildhall, Terfel scored a breakthrough at the 1989 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, which was widely broadcast and attracted the attention of star conductors such as Sir Georg Solti. He made his operatic debut at the Welsh National Opera the following year as Guglielmo in Mozart's Così fan tutte. Specializing in roles such as Figaro in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Terfel won the Young Singer of the Year award from Britain's Gramophone magazine. Terfel signed with the Deutsche Grammophon label in 1994 and released the Schubert song recital An die Musik. He quickly became a very prolific recording artist, issuing six albums in the year 2000 alone. In 2003, Terfel was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire; he had already been serving as the honorary monarch of the Welsh island of Bardsey.

Terfel has mostly remained with Deutsche Grammophon since then but has appeared on smaller labels, including Marquis, for several Welsh-language releases; he has spoken out in support of Welsh language and culture. His crossover albums, such as Homeward Bound, covering American hymnody and recorded with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, have been best-sellers. In 2018, Terfel released Dreams and Songs, which combined musical theater selections, Welsh songs, and other popular material. On stage, he has continued to perform opera, often taking on Wagnerian roles such as that of Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger as his voice darkened in middle age. In 2016, he sang the title role in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov at the Royal Opera House. His operatic repertory includes about 30 works, with Wagner, Mozart, and Puccini the most frequently occurring composers among them. He has also been an enthusiastic performer of oratorio (Mendelssohn's Elijah is one of his specialties) and of classical art song. By the time he released the album Sea Songs on Deutsche Grammophon in 2024, his recording catalog comprised more than 50 items. In 2023, he performed a Welsh-language work by Paul Mealor at the coronation of King Charles III. ~ James Manheim

Myung-Whun Chung is one of the leading conductors of his generation. Also a prize-winning pianist, he is particularly noted for his interpretations of the music of French composer Olivier Messiaen.

There has rarely been as talented a group of siblings as Myung-Whun and his two older sisters, cellist Myung-Wha Chung (born 1944) and violinist Kyung-Wha Chung (born 1948). Myung-Whun made his performing debut as a pianist in Seoul at the age of 7. At 8, he flew to Seattle, WA, to begin his American musical studies. He attended the Mannes School, and later the Juilliard School in New York. His teachers there were Nadia Reisenberg (piano) and Carl Bramburger (conducting).

Chung won the New York Times piano competition in 1970. He made a conducting debut back in Seoul in 1971, conducting the Korean Symphony Orchestra. In 1974, he entered the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow as a pianist, winning second prize. He and his sisters began performing as a trio while he continued conducting studies at Juilliard, conducting both the New York Youth Orchestra and the Pre-College Orchestra of the Juilliard School. Carlo Maria Giulini, music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, engaged Chung as his assistant in 1978. Two years later on Giulini's recommendation, the orchestra named Chung its associate conductor. In 1984, Chung became music director and principal conductor of the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra in Germany. He made his triumphant New York debut in 1986 conducting the Metropolitan Opera's production of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra. Later in 1986, he also delivered a brilliant performance in Paris of Prokofiev's rarely heard opera The Fiery Angel. In 1987, he was appointed principal guest conductor of the Teatro Communale of Florence, Italy (1987-1992). He received two major Italian awards during this period, the Premio Abbiata and the 1989 Arturo Toscanini Prize. In 1989 Chung became music director of the Opéra-Paris-Bastille. His performances included Messiaen's Saint-François d'Assise and Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District. He became noted for his renditions of the complex music of Messiaen. The composer rewarded Chung by dedicating and entrusting the world premiere of his last work, the Concert à quatre (1994), to him. In 1992, the French government awarded him the Legion of Honor for his contributions to the Paris Opera. This did not prevent an angry parting resulting from a change of administration at the French Ministry of Culture in 1994. He has frequently guest conducted in such venues as La Scala Milan, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and the leading international orchestras. After leaving the Bastille Opera post he has been principal conductor of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and the Asia Philharmonic Orchestra.

In the early '80s he began work to present "environmental concerts" to allow the audience to accept environmental problems "with their hearts." He seeks a closer relationship between the two parts of his divided country, and has premiered the music of Isang Yun, a South Korean-born composer with similar views. Chung held concerts to raise money for rice to be shipped to famine-stricken North Korea. When he won the Ho-Am Prize from the Samsung Group (worth $111,000), he donated it all to the Korean Red Cross to alleviate the starvation in North Korea.

He also promotes an anti-drug message in his concerts, leading him in 1992 to be named Ambassador of the Drug Control Program at the United Nations. He was 1995's UNESCO "Man of the Year" and in 1996 won the highest cultural award of the Korean government. He returned to Korea to become music director of the Korean Broadcasting Symphony, and is the first Honorary Cultural Ambassador for Korea.