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Mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená, or Lady Rattle if you are so inclined, became a popular and critically celebrated figure in Europe before the age of 30. She was touted as the chief competitor to Cecilia Bartoli (although there is no evidence of a personal rivalry between the two). Her area of primary expertise is 18th century music, particularly Bach, but she has also had success in more Romantic opera and song repertory. Kožená's voice has been variously described as "sweet" and "fiery and melting," depending on her repertory; more constant attributes include her vocal agility and sense of drama, which are both highly regarded.

Kožená was born on May 26, 1973, in Brno, in the Czech Republic (formerly Czechoslovakia). She initially studied at the Brno Conservatory, then with Eva Blahová at the College of Performing Arts in Bratislava. Even before her graduation in 1995, she was winning major prizes in the Czech Republic and internationally, the most significant being top honors at the sixth International Mozart Competition in Salzburg in 1995. She spent the 1996-1997 season as a member of the Vienna Volksoper. In 1997, Kožená made her recording debut with an album of Bach Arias on the Archiv Produktion label. In 1998, she made her debut at the Drottningholm Festival as Paride in Gluck's Paride ed Elena. Her Bach recording caught the attention of the Deutsche Grammophon label, which signed her to an exclusive recording contract in 1999 that resulted in annual releases. In 2000, she debuted at the Châtelet in Paris as Gluck's Orpheus and at the Vienna Festival as Nero in Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea. She appeared as Cherubino in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2001. During this time, Kožená was also an active recitalist throughout Europe but was less known in the U.S., despite performances in San Francisco and at Carnegie Hall. Participation in Metropolitan Opera productions of Mozart and Janácek operas boosted her American reputation.

Kožená has been featured mainly in Baroque and Classical music, although she has also ventured into the Romantic era and 20th century Czech songs. As a recitalist, she has performed and recorded Britten, which has endeared her to the nationalistic British press. An even greater honor came to Kožená in 2003 with the success of her recording of Romantic French opera arias, not to mention her presence in the 2002 centenary production of Pelléas et Mélisande at the Opéra Comique: she was awarded the title of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. In 2004, she was named the Gramophone Awards "Artist of the Year." Kožená married conductor Sir Simon Rattle in 2008, and they have three children together. Since her marriage, she has also been known as Lady Rattle. In 2009, Kožená's recording of Julietta fragments by Martinu won a Gramophone Award. The following season, she toured with the ensemble Private Musicke in a program based on her album Lettere Amorose. Kožená began a fruitful relationship with the PentaTone Classics label in 2017, which quickly resulted in several albums, including Il Giardino dei sospiri and Soirée: Magdalena Kožená & Friends in 2019. Her 2023-2024 season included recitals, concerts, and operatic appearances in countries around the world, and saw her release the album Folk Songs (with Rattle conducting the Czech Philharmonic) in 2023, followed by a recording of Handel's Alcina (with Marc Minkowski leading Les Musiciens du Louvre) in 2024. ~ James Reel & Keith Finke

Stuart Skelton is a comparatively rare example of the true heldentenor, or heroic tenor, specializing in the difficult voice parts of operas by Wagner and other Germany composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He has appeared on major operatic and concert stages not only in Australia and Europe, but also in the U.S., where he was partly trained.

Skelton was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1968. A key early breakthrough was a victory in Australia's McDonald's Aria Competition, which propelled him to studies in the U.S. at the University of Cincinnati and the San Francisco Opera's Merola Opera Program. He grew gradually into the heldentenor specialty, asserting that the idea of a young heldentenor was oxymoronic, and that the specialty would naturally emerge over time. At 29, Skelton made his debut in Wagner's Lohengrin with the Karlsruhe Opera; telephoning a teacher before the first performance, he was told to get off the phone and get on with it. Since then, he has appeared at the Bavarian State Opera, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Seattle Opera, La Scala in Milan, and the Paris Opéra, among other top halls. He has often sung German and Austrian repertory but has also ventured into big dramatic roles from Eastern Europe and Russia, including Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades and Janáček's Jenufa. His repertory also includes, in his native language, Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes. He won the Male Singer of the Year award at the International Opera Awards in 2014. Skelton is also a noted concert artist, having appeared with all the major Australian orchestras, the BBC Symphony, the BBC Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic, the London Symphony, several top German orchestras, and the San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston Symphony Orchestras. His concert specialties include Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, and Missa Solemnis, Op. 123, and Mahler's orchestral song Das Lied von der Erde. Skelton's performances of the latter work have been issued several times on recordings, most recently in 2018, when he recorded it with mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Simon Rattle for the BR Klassik label, and in 2019, when he was featured in an Avi recording with the Düsseldorf Symphony under conductor Ádám Fischer. He appeared as Peter Grimes on the Chandos label in 2020, in a recording conducted by Edward Gardner, and he returned in 2021 in a recording of the orchestral song Verklärte Nacht, by Oskar Fried. ~ James Manheim

Of the three major orchestras based in Munich, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra is probably the most prominent and arguably the finest. It has been the most heavily recorded of the three and one of the most often-recorded ensembles in the world, its recordings appearing on a variety of major and minor labels over the years. Moreover, all of its music directors have been internationally acclaimed as among the leading conductors of their time.

The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra was established in 1949, and from that time to the present, has functioned under the financial and organizational auspices of the Bavarian Radio of Munich. Eugen Jochum was appointed the ensemble's first music director, and he immediately proceeded to build the orchestra into one of Germany's finest. Its initial recordings were made under his baton in 1950. The orchestra's reputation in concert developed even more quickly under Jochum. Several critically acclaimed tours of Europe throughout the '50s, reaching from Austria to Great Britain, established its prominence early on. Igor Stravinsky led the ensemble in performances of his own works in 1951, and four years later, Paul Hindemith conducted a program featuring his music. Other prominent artists and conductors also appeared in the '50s, including the orchestra's next music director, Rafael Kubelik, who succeeded Jochum in 1961. Kubelik's notable recordings with Bavarian Radio Symphony include several of the Mahler symphonies and Schoenberg's Gurrelieder. Kubelik was a conservative in matters of repertory, largely focusing on Classical and Romantic works. He also made a number of successful concert tours of Europe and North America with the Bavarian Radio Symphony in both the 1960s and '70s.

The Bavarian Radio Symphony continued to attract major artists and guest conductors, including Carlo Maria Giulini, Bernard Haitink, Zubin Mehta, and Leonard Bernstein, who made regular appearances with the ensemble beginning in 1976. Kubelik resigned in September 1979, and Kiril Kondrashin, a recent defector from the Soviet Union and one of the world's most respected conductors, was chosen to become his successor. He was never officially named music director, though he functioned in that capacity, and when he suddenly died of a heart attack in 1981, the orchestra was left without a director until 1983, when Sir Colin Davis took the podium. During his tenure, many successful tours were undertaken, including ones to Japan in 1984 and to the United States in 1986. Davis' critically acclaimed recordings with the Bavarian Radio Symphony include releases of the Mendelssohn symphonies and Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio. Lorin Maazel succeeded him in 1993 and continued the tradition of conducting and recording many choral and vocal works. The orchestra's releases under Maazel's direction include compelling performances of several Mahler works with Waltraud Meier.

Maazel's tenure with the orchestra ended in 2002, and he was succeeded the following year by Mariss Jansons. In 2006, Jansons and Bavarian Radio Symphony won a Grammy for Best Orchestral Performance for its recording of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 13 on the EMI Classics label. Since 2009, the orchestra has also recorded under its own BR Klassik label, where it released recordings of Bruckner's Symphony No. 9 as well as Schumann's Symphony No. 1 with Schubert's Symphony No. 3 in 2019. Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony enjoyed a fruitful collaboration, greatly expanding the orchestra's recordings while earning major prizes. Jansons' term as chief conductor ended with his death on December 1, 2019, shortly after leading his final concert with the group in early November. Sir Simon Rattle was named the orchestra's next chief conductor in 2021, with his term set to begin with the 2023-2024 season.

The orchestra, which has regularly broadcast concerts over Bavarian Radio throughout its existence, consists of 115 members and performs in the Philharmonie Munich am Gasteig and the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz. Sometimes known outside Germany as the Munich Symphony, in addition to the full orchestra, several smaller ensembles, including the Koeckert-Quartet, the Bach Collegium Munich, and the Munich Brass Ensemble, have been established by members of the larger group. The popularity and critical acclaim given these smaller ensembles reflects the high standard of musicianship present within the full orchestra. ~ Robert Cummings & Keith Finke