- Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of Italian opera in the 19th century and went well beyond the work of Bellini, Donizetti, and Rossini. His works are frequently performed in opera houses throughout the world and, transcending the boundaries of the genre, … - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (baptized Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. His output of over 600 compositions includes works widely acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music. Mozart is among the most enduringly popular of European composers and many of his works are part of the standard concert repertoire. - Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner (22 May 1813 - 13 February 1883) was a German composer, conductor, music theorist, and essayist, primarily known for his operas (or "music dramas" as they were later called). Unlike most other great opera composers, Wagner always wrote the scenario and libretto for his works himself. Wagner's compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their contrapuntal texture, rich chromaticism, harmonies and orchestration, … - Luciano Pavarotti
Luciano Pavarotti (October 12, 1935 - September 9, 2007) was an Italian spinto tenor; one of the best known vocal performers in contemporary times, in the world of opera and across multiple musical genres. He was born in Modena (Emilia-Romagna), in northern Italy. - Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss (June 11, 1864 - September 8, 1949) was a German composer of the late Romantic era and early modern era, particularly noted for his tone poems and operas. He was also a noted conductor. - Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including "La bohème", "Tosca", and "Madama Butterfly", are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire. Some of his melodies, such as "O mio babbino caro" from "Gianni Schicchi" and "Nessun dorma" from "Turandot", have become part of modern culture. - Bernd Alois Zimmermann
Bernd Alois Zimmermann (March 20, 1918 - August 10, 1970 ; full name "Bernhard Alois Zimmermann") was a post-WWII West German composer. He is perhaps best known for his opera Die Soldaten which is regarded as one of the most important operas of the 20th century. As a result of his individual style, it is hard to label his music as avant-garde, serial or postmodern. His music employs a wide range of materials including the twelve-tone row and musical quotation. - Andrea Bocelli
Andrea Bocelli is an Italian singer, writer, and music producer. He is both an operatic tenor and a classical crossover singer. To date, he has recorded four complete operas — "La Bohème", "Il Trovatore", "Werther" and "Tosca" — in addition to various classical and pop albums. Bocelli has congenital glaucoma and is blind. - Maria Callas
Maria Callas was an American born, Greek dramatic coloratura soprano and perhaps the best-known opera singer of the post-World War II period. She combined an impressive bel canto technique with great dramatic gifts. An extremely versatile singer, her repertoire ranged from classical opera seria to the bel canto operas of Donizetti, Bellini, and Rossini, and further, to the works of Verdi and Puccini, and in her early career, the music dramas of Wagner. - Franz Schubert
Franz Seraphicus Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer. He wrote some 600 Lieder, seven completed symphonies, the famous "Unfinished Symphony", liturgical music, operas, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music. He is particularly noted for his original melodic and harmonic writing. While Schubert had a close circle of friends and associates who admired his work (including his teacher Antonio Salieri, and the prominent singer Johann Michael Vogl), … - Aretha Franklin
Aretha Louise Franklin (born March 25, 1942) is an American R&B, Pop and Gospel singer, songwriter, and pianist. She has been called for many years "The Queen Of Soul", but many also call her "Lady Soul," as well as the more affectionate "Sister Ree." She is renowned for her soul recordings but is also adept at jazz, rock, blues, pop, gospel, and even opera. She is generally regarded as one of the greatest vocalists ever, … - Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt was a Hungarian virtuoso pianist and composer of the Romantic period. He was a renowned performer throughout Europe during the 19th century, noted especially for his showmanship and great skill with the piano. Today, he is considered to be one of the greatest pianists in history, despite the fact that no recordings of his playing exist. Liszt is frequently credited with re-defining piano playing itself, and his influence is still visible today, … - Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (November 29, 1797 - April 8, 1848) was an Italian opera composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. Donizetti's most famous work is "Lucia di Lammermoor" (1835). Along with Vincenzo Bellini and Gioacchino Rossini, he was a leading composer of "bel canto" opera. - Plácido Domingo
José Plácido Domingo Embil KBE (born January 21, 1941), better known as Plácido Domingo, is a world-famous Spanish operatic tenor. He is known for his versatile, strong voice that possesses a ringing and clear tone throughout its range. In addition to his singing roles, he has also taken on conducting opera performances as well as acting as the General Director of the Washington National Opera in Washington, DC and the Los Angeles Opera in California. - Roger Waters
George Roger Waters (born September 9, 1943) is an English rock musician; singer, guitarist, bassist, songwriter, and composer. He is best known for his 1965-1985 career with the band Pink Floyd as their main songwriter (after the departure of Syd Barrett), bass player and one of their lead vocalists (along with David Gilmour and, to a lesser extent, Rick Wright). He was also the mastermind behind many of the band's concept albums, … - Cecilia Bartoli
The Italian mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli is an opera singer and recitalist. She is best-known for her Mozart and Rossini roles as well as for her performances of lesser-known Baroque music. Bartoli is considered a coloratura mezzo-soprano (Koloratur-Mezzosopran), with perhaps less of a "large voice" than some other mezzos, but with a highly individual timbre which she uses to great vocal and dramatic effect. - Bryn Terfel
The Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel, CBE (born November 9, 1965) is one of the best-known contemporary opera and concert singers. The bass-baritone is much admired for both the quality of his singing as his charismatic stage presence. Initially, Terfel was associated with the roles of Mozart, particularly Leporello, but he has expanded his repertoire to include heavier roles, including Wagner. - George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-born British Baroque composer who was a leading composer of concerti grossi, operas and oratorios. Born in Germany as Georg Friederich Händel, he dwelt during most of his adult life in England, becoming a subject of the British crown on 22 January 1727. His most famous works are "Messiah", an oratorio set to texts from the King James Bible, "Water Music" and "Music for the Royal Fireworks". - Joan Sutherland
Dame Joan Sutherland OM, AC, DBE (born November 7, 1926) is an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano noted for her contribution to the bel canto revival of the 1950s and 1960s. She was hailed La Stupenda after an Alcina performance in La Fenice in 1960. - Anna Netrebko
Anna Jurjewna Netrebko or Анна Юрьевна Нетребко, (born 18 September 1971 in Krasnodar, Russia) is a Russian soprano who also holds Austrian citizenship. - Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Monteverdi (May 15, 1567 (baptized) - November 29, 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer. His work marks the transition from Renaissance to Baroque music, and during his long life he produced works that can be classified in both categories. Monteverdi has been regarded as a revolutionary who brought about change in musical style. He wrote one of the earliest operas, "Orfeo", … - Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli (born Gianfranco Corsi on February 12, 1923), is an Italian film director. He is also an opera director, designer and producer of opera, theatre, film and television. Internationally, he is known for having directed the 1968 film version of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" for which he was nominated to receive an Academy Award. - Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog is a German film director, screenwriter, actor, and opera director. He is often associated with the German New Wave movement (also called New German Cinema), along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Volker Schlöndorff, Wim Wenders and others. His films often feature heroes with impossible dreams or people with unique talents in obscure fields. - Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach (20 June 1819 - 5 October 1880) was a French composer and cellist of the Romantic era and one of the originators of the operetta form. He was one of the most influential composers of popular music in Europe in the 19th century, and many of his works remain in the repertory. While his name remains most closely associated with the French operetta and the Second Empire, it is his one fully operatic masterpiece, Les contes d'Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann), … - Valery Gergiev
Valery Abisalovich Gergiev (b. 2 May 1953) is a Russian conductor and opera company director. He is general director and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and principal guest conductor of the Metropolitan Opera. - Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich was born in St. Petersburg, Russia on September 25, 1906. Years after his death, he remains one of the most important figures in 20th-century classical music and one of the most controversial. Under pressure from Soviet authorities, he compromised his art. At least that was how it seemed. (09/25/2006) - Roberto Alagna
Roberto Alagna (born June 7, 1963) is a French operatic tenor. Alagna was born in Clichy-sous-Bois, Seine-Saint-Denis, France. His family of Sicilian immigrants was very musically talented. As a teenager the young Alagna began busking and singing pop in Parisian cabarets for tips. Influenced primarily by the films of Mario Lanza, but also from recordings of many historic tenors, he then switched to opera. - Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini (November 3, 1801 - September 23, 1835) was a Sicilian opera composer. Known for his flowing melodic lines, Bellini was the quintessential composer of Bel canto opera. - Gioachino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini (February 29, 1792 - November 13, 1868) was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music and chamber music. His best known works include "Il barbiere di Siviglia" ("The Barber of Seville") and "Guillaume Tell" ("William Tell"). - Enrico Caruso
Enrico Caruso (February 25 1873 - August 2 1921) was an Italian opera singer and one of the most famous tenors in history. Caruso was also the most popular singer in any genre in the first twenty years of the twentieth century and one of the pioneers of recorded music. Caruso's popular recordings and his extraordinary voice, known for its range, power, and beauty, made him one of the best-known stars of his time. - Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, musical, masque, sacred or secular oratorio and cantata, musical, and ballet. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass and requiem. "Libretto" (pl. libretti) is an Italian word which translates literally as "little book." It is distinct from a synopsis or scenario of the plot. - José Carreras
Josep Carreras i Coll, better known as José Carreras, is an operatic tenor. One of the most prominent singers of his generation, and particularly eminent in the operas of Verdi and Puccini, his operatic career has encompassed over 60 roles on stage and in the recording studio. - Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, best known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas "Faust" and "Roméo et Juliette". - Richard Thomas
Richard Thomas is a musician, writer, and comedy actor. He is best known for composing and scoring the award-winning "Jerry Springer - The Opera" with Stewart Lee. Thomas collected the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Musical Score in 2004. Richard Thomas's comedy career began in 1987, doing a musical act on keyboards. In 2000, he wrote and performed a one-act opera called "Tourette’s Diva" with four actors, which aired at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. - Martha Graham
Martha Graham (May 11, 1894 - April 1, 1991) was an American dancer and choreographer. She is regarded as one of the foremost pioneers of modern dance. - Jules Massenet
Jules (Émile Frédéric) Massenet was a French composer. He is best known for his operas, which were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th century; they afterwards fell into oblivion for the most part, but have undergone periodic revivals since the mid-1970's. - Samuel Barber
Samuel Osborne Barber II was an American composer of classical music ranging from orchestral, to opera, choral, and piano music. His "Adagio for Strings" became his most famous composition and can be heard in films such as "Sicko", "Platoon", "The Elephant Man", "El Norte", "Amélie", "Lorenzo's Oil" and "Reconstruction". - Renée Fleming
Renée Fleming, is an American soprano who sings principally opera and jazz. She is generally considered to be one of the world's leading lyric sopranos. Her beauty of tone and stage presence make her a much sought-after performer in opera houses and concert halls worldwide. - Seiji Ozawa
is a Japanese conductor, particularly noted for his interpretations of large-scale late Romantic works. - Manuel de Falla
Manuel de Falla y Matheu was a Spanish composer of classical music. Manuel de Falla was born in Cádiz. His early teacher in music was his mother; at the age of 9 he was introduced to his first piano professor. From the late 1890s he studied music in Madrid, piano with José Tragó and composition with Felipe Pedrell. In 1899 by unanimous vote he was awarded the first prize at the piano competition at his school of music, …
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