Angela Gheorghiu

With an instantly recognizable voice and a true diva image, Angela Gheorghiu is one of the world’s best-known opera stars. Her specialties lie in mainstream Italian and French roles. Gheorghiu was born in the small town of Adjud, Romania, on September 7, 1965. Her birth name was Angela Burlacu; Gheorghiu was the surname of her first husband, an engineer whom she divorced in 1994 but with whom she remained on good terms. Gheorghiu studied with Mia Barbu at the Ciprian Porumbescu Conservatory in Bucharest (now part of Romania’s National University of Music), graduating in 1990 just as international careers became possible for Eastern European singers. She made her debut in Britain at the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden in 1992, performing Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Mimi in Puccini’s La bohème. Gheorghiu has maintained a close connection with that house over the years, even as her career expanded. Her debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera came in 1993 as Mimi in La bohème, and she has returned to that venue although she has clashed with the house’s management. Gheorghiu was signed to the Decca label and was heard there as Violetta on a 1995 recording of Verdi's La Traviata. She issued several more albums on Decca, including Arias (1996), moving to EMI for a 1997 recording of Puccini's La Rondine that was conducted by Antonio Pappano. Since then, she has recorded mostly for EMI. A significant contributor to Gheorghiu’s success was her marriage to tenor Roberto Alagna, which lasted from 1996 to 2013 and marked the pair as opera’s premier power couple. The two often performed together. Gheorghiu has appeared at numerous major houses in Europe and the U.S., including La Scala in Milan, where she made her debut in 2007 in a production of La Traviata conducted by Lorin Maazel. In 2008, she performed at the Metropolitan Opera’s Summer Concert in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park and at the Divas in Beijing concert at the Summer Olympics. As she moved into mid-career, Gheorghiu began to take darker spinto soprano roles, such as Puccini’s Tosca, which she sang at a 2011 Covent Garden production that was released on video. Her recorded output has mostly been restricted to opera, although she did issue a song recital, Plaisir d'amour, on Decca in 2019. She has avoided crossover releases but appeared on Juno to Jupiter, the final release by Vangelis. Gheorghiu has retained ties to her native Romania and performed in a Bucharest benefit concert for victims of the Colectiv nightclub fire in 2015. In 2021, Gheorghiu performed another benefit concert, this one for Metropolitan Opera musicians who lost their income during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2024, she moved to the Signum Classics label for A Te, Puccini, her first album in several years; the album featured Puccini’s rarely heard songs for voice and piano. By then, her recording catalog comprised well over 50 items. ~ James Manheim