Angela Gheorghiu - My Puccini [CD + DVD] (2008)

EMI Classics is proud to present Angela Gheorghiu: My Puccini, a stunning homage to the legend of Puccini featuring the finest arias from his best-loved operas, sung by the leading Puccini soprano of our time. This compilation features tracks from Angela's extensive discography on EMI Classics, including several collaborations with her husband, tenor Roberto Alagna.
Accompanying the CD is a special bonus DVD of previously unreleased material, including stunning footage of Angela singing Puccini, as well as an interview of her speaking about the composer.
(douban)

This compilation features the very best Puccini arias from Angela’s extensive discography on EMI Classics. A number of these are from La Bohème, including Mi chiamano Mimì and Donde lieta usci, both sung by Mimì. It is this opera and role which marked both Angela’s graduation from the Bucharest Music Academy in 1990 and her international debut at Covent Garden, which shot her to stardom and brought her worldwide acclaim.
The disc also contains Vissi d’arte and Mario!...Son qui! from Tosca. For the latter aria she is joined by the tenor, her husband Roberto Alagna, with whom she has given countless acclaimed performances both on stage and on disc.
(ebay)

Angela Gheorghiu is a Romanian soprano in demand the world over for leading roles in French and Italian operas, mostly of the nineteenth century. Her singing and career are spectacular in their own right, but Gheorghiu has gained an added measure of fame and publicity from her partnership with her husband, the tenor Roberto Alagna, which whom she performs frequently; they are the world of opera's best-known power couple.
Gheorghiu had success very quickly after her graduation from the Bucharest Academy in 1990, but her international career shifted into gear at England's Covent Garden, which engaged her as Zerlina in Mozart's Don Giovanni in 1992, and then as Mimi in Puccini's La bohème the same year. She received enormous critical praise for her singing there, and that house has continued to be a cornerstone of her career. In particular, her 1994 Violetta in La traviata was considered one of the finest performances of that role in many years. She made he debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1993 as Mimi in La bohème, and while she has continued to sing there sporadically, conflicts with General Manager Joseph Volpe have made her performances there irregular.
Gheorgiu quickly obtained a contract with Decca, for whom she has recorded Donizetti's L'elisir d'Amore, Puccini's La bohème, and an album called My World; her many recordings with Alagna are mostly on EMI, and include Bizet's Carmen, Verdi's Il trovatore and Puccini's La rondine. Since 1998 she has recorded exclusively for EMI, and has added Puccini's Gianni Schicchi, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Massenet's Werther, and an album of Verdi duets, Verdi per due, with Alagna and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. At the turn of the new century, Gheorghiu was continuing to add new operas to her repertory, including Luisa Miller, Pagliacci, Faust, Lucia di Lammermoor, La sonnambula, Tosca, Lucrezia Borgia, and Simon Boccanegra. In 2000 she made a highly successful movie version of Tosca with Roberto Alagna and Ruggero Raimondi. Her recording of Manon won a Gramophone Award in 2001, and her recordings have received numerous other honors, including Diapason d'Or Awards and a Deutscher Schallplattenpreis.