Exquisite album with vocals ranging from spirituals, Brazilian and Spanish songs, and the English Baroque mixed in with guitar solos: Come Again! Sweet Love Doth Now Invite to Ave Maria to This Little Light of Mine. Recorded relatively early in Battle's career, before the evil-diva personality affected her singing.

"Best of" compilations seldom are, but this one's not bad. 2 CDs, mostly pulled from other recordings - as is also the way of a "best of." Puccini, Il Pirata, and I Puritani... with Mascagni, Mefistofele, and Macbeth. And some Spanish songs.

The Bel Canto Society has several performances on film.

A wonderful dramatic soprano from a generation or two ago, Curtin was never really acknowledged as a star by opera- house managements - but her audiences knew. Classic arias here, plus Ain't it a Pretty Night from Susannah (a role she created), and her own signature role,  the final scene from Salome.

Countertenors are all the rage these days, and sometimes you may wonder why... I promise you will have no such doubts when you listen to David Daniels. At first hearing, you're stunned - we're not used to hearing countertenors with so much weight - this voice has amazing impact and beauty. An intelligent singer with great emotion.

Schubert's brilliant song cycle, here sung by a master early in his career (before mannerisms took over). It's a wonderfully powerful and tender story of a boy who becomes a man through love and loss. Fischer-Dieskau's reputation was justifiably built on his lieder singing, as you'll hear.

The soprano hope for the future who kept the promise, Renée Fleming has a wonderful stage presence to go along with her superb singing. She has many fine recordings, but I particularly like this one with its emphasis on character and scenes - here are Rusalka's Song to the Moon and the "Embroidery Aria" from Peter Grimes.

The true gift of this young American mezzo is for the early-music composers. With frequent collaborator René Jacobs, she presents show-stopping arias written for - and by - the greatest castrato of all, Farinelli. She told me the biggest challenge for her is the breathing - the men have greater lung capacity. both the fireworks and the passion on display here are amazing.

I've said before here that singers are at their best when singing music closest to their hearts. In the same way Thomas Allen admires - and revives - English songs from bygone eras, Hampson has always done that for American music. He has several similar albums - this is my favorite, maybe because I can't choose one favorite song!

This album presents many of the bel canto and Handelian pieces that are Larmore specialties... with the Habanera from Carmen thrown in. Other Larmore albums, all of them worth several hearings, showcase her facination with American music and native song. Highly recommended, a collection of duets with soprano Hei-Kyung Hong.

TERESA STRATAS
Stratas Sings Weill

Teresa Stratas was Lotte Leyna's choice as the torch-bearer of Weill's music - this album is classic Weill, from Mahagonny, Street Scene, Lady in the Dark, One Touch of Venus and The Threepenny Opera.  As she was on stage, Stratas records incredibly well as an astonishing and powerful voice-actor.

 KIRI TE KANAWA
Sole & Amore

All-Puccini arias and songs on this album... Dame Kiri is often critized for seeming removed from the characters she portrays, but that's not the case here. Perhaps it's her conductor, Kent Nagano - their previous work was a fine La Bohčme, and she's in lovely voice here.

BRYN TERFEL
The Vagabond

This is an amazing recording. Bryn Terfel is an audience favorite in operas by Mozart, Rossini and Verdi, and he fearlessly charges into roles that sometimes sit too low for him - not that he asked my opinion. But here he works with songs that seem to come from deep in his soul, expressed simply, without affectation. It's a moving collection of images created in words and music.

"Knoxville" is one of my desert-island favorites and, like Bernstein's "Glitter and Be Gay,"  it's a soprano's recording benchmark. Upshaw sings it better than others on record - yes, I'm including the young Leontye Price! - haunting. Her instinctive musicality is paired with a fierce intelligence about her texts. Other songs in English make this a most delicious album in my collection.

Some think Van Dam's voice is too perfect, too even, too much lacking in passion... but I defy you to listen to his Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the Death of Children) here and not be touched by the depth of the grief he portrays. Yes, of course part of that's the composer - but there's a richness to VanDam's voice that adds even more. Other titles: Do not look at my songs; I am lost to the world; I often think they have merely gone out.

This is one of those recordings that shatters preconceptions, in the same manner as does listening to Carlos Kleiber conduct anything. Maestro Claudio Abbado leads here, and the collaboration is illuminating, making you feel as if you've never heard some of these songs before. All three artists have an impressive body of work, and Von Otter has worked often with Quasthoff - but this one's amazing.

All Verdi, all the time... there are 8 CDs in this box set, a treasure chest of historical gems, recorded by the greatest singers of the first half of the 20th century. They're all here, from Caruso to Hempel, Tagliavini to Del Monaco, and often two or three singers' versions of the same aria or ensemble. If you're even a little bit interested in history, or if like me, you have a passion for this sort of thing, this is a gold mine.