Angela Gheorghiu

The BBC rearranged its schedule to televise Angela Gheorghiu's Violetta at Covent Garden live in 1994. Born in Adjud in 1965, she studied at the National University of Music in Bucharest and made her debut as Mimì; 1992 brought her the Royal Opera House and the Vienna State Opera, 1993 the Metropolitan. Puccini and the French and Italian lyric repertoire are her ground: Mimì, Tosca, Magda, Adriana Lecouvreur, Marguerite, Juliette. She has recorded for the major labels — complete operas, recital albums and filmed productions among them. She studied in Bucharest with Mia Barbu, and in 2007 she created Fanny in the premiere of Vladimir Cosma's Marius et Fanny in Marseille. Her filmed work includes the title role in Benoît Jacquot's Tosca, shown at the Venice festival in 2001, and she sang at the reopening gala of the Royal Opera House in 1999, at the Last Night of the Proms in the Royal Albert Hall in 2003 and in Hyde Park in 2000 and 2006, and at the reopening of the Bolshoi in 2011. Her honours include the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres as Chevalier and Officier and two Classical BRIT awards as female artist of the year; her autobiography, written with Jon Tolansky, appeared in 2018.