I

t is not a daily privilege for us to have the opportunity watching great soprano performance in this region. This year, we had a chance to have some great international artists performing at the Singapore Sun Festival. One of them is Angela Gheorghiu - a soprano diva widely known for her singing power, great acts on stage and also for being unpredictable. Below is a brief talk with Angela before the opera gala.

Question: It has been quite a long way since your first time singing Grieg's "Solveig's Song" until becoming who you are now: the Diva of Opera. Do you ever think to do something if you are not doing opera?

Answer: Never ever! Never have I believed *not even a second* that I could do something else or that I could have become anybody else than an opera singer or "the Diva of Opera", as you are calling me.

I only know that I was born with a "voice" and that I started studying since I was 14. It was not easy during the most awful communist dictatorship in Romania. But my family, my professors and the Romanian public have always given me the power to believe in my future. I actually started my career when I was in school.

Do you have any other particular character or opera that you really love to play?

My next role will be Adriana Lecouvreur in a new production in the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. The role is fascinating! Adriana is an artist like me, like Tosca... I think I know very well what this means.

But I am just beginning a tour with a lot of concerts. I do like concerts very much. In Singapore I will be accompanied by the tenor Marius Manea, whom I discovered in Romania, "the country of great sopranos".

Congratulations on the launching of your new CD Madame Butterfly. Could you share a bit the story behind this recording?

I discovered tenor Jonas Kaufmann while he was still singing at the Zurich Opera. My manager Jack Mastroianni showed me a DVD with the opera "Nina Pazza Per Amore" and he impressed me. I was actually looking for a tenor in two of my productions: for "La Rondine" in Covent Garden and "La Traviata" at the MET.

Then I recommended him to these theaters, later even to La Scala in Milan and they accepted him. He made incredible debuts everywhere, having real success, being a very gifted and complex artist. Then I had the idea of recording an integral opera in studio together with Jonas.

At the beginning the people from EMI Classics were suspicious, but now everybody thanks me for my choice and is very pleased. I am very proud of him and I do think that this "Madame Butterfly", conducted by my good friend and by the great conductor of our times Tony Pappano, is one of the most spectacular discographic achievements in the last years, together with all the records realized with DECCA and Emi Classics with "the tenor of our times", Roberto Alagna.

Is this your first time visiting Singapore?

Had I come to Singapore earlier you would have heard about it. I never sing secretly.