Maria Callas Commendatore OMRI (born Sophie Cecilia Kalos; December 2, 1923 – September 16, 1977) was a Greek-American soprano who was one of the twentieth century's most known and influential opera singers. Many commentators commended her bel canto skills, broad vocal range, and dramatic interpretations. Her repertory varied from classical opera seria through bel canto operas by Donizetti, Bellini, and Rossini, as well as works by Verdi and Puccini, and, in her early career, Wagner music dramas. Her musical and theatrical abilities earned her the title "La Divina" ("the Divine one").

After several appearances as a student, Callas began appearing in secondary roles at the Greek National Opera. De Hidalgo was instrumental in securing roles for her, allowing Callas to earn a small salary, which helped her and her family get through the difficult war years.

Callas' legacy goes on decades after her death. If you ask someone on the street to name a female opera singer, odds are they would say "Maria Callas" But the same cannot be said about the others on this list! Callas' interpretations were not always exactly correct, but her heart, passion, and soul showed through. And isn't that the point of art? The power to arouse something inside you that you cannot always explain? It's similar to Monet's "smears" and "blobs." On the surface, they are not exactly works of art, but when viewed as a whole, they are stunning...

Awards:

• Grammy Lifetime Achievement Hardware (2007)
• Grammy Hall of Fame (1987)
• Grammy Award for Best Classical Performance, Operatic or Choral (Nominations: 1959)

Tarja Soile Susanna Turunen-Cabuli (born August 17, 1977) is a Finnish singer-songwriter better known as Tarja Turunen or just Tarja. She is a soprano with a three-octave vocal range.

Turunen attended the Sibelius Academy and the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe to study singing. She is a professional classical lied singer, but she is best known as the former lead vocalist of the Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish, which she co-founded in 1996 with Tuomas Holopainen and Emppu Vuorinen. Their harsh and rapid guitar riffs, along with Turunen's dramatic, "operatic" lead vocals, immediately gained critical and commercial acclaim. Their symphonic metal approach quickly called "opera metal" influenced a slew of subsequent metal bands and singers.

Turunen left the band in 2005 and was replaced by Anette Olzon. Turunen went on to have a successful solo career. Unlike her work with Nightwish, her music is mostly created by herself and spans a wide range of genres, from classic to symphonic metal to alternative rock. Turunen's solo albums are frequently experimental, incorporating elements and styles that are not typically connected with the rock and classic genres.

Awards:

• Echo Award for Best International Newcomer (Nominations: 2008)

Nobody on this list can match Joan Sutherland's vocal range. Maria Callas was the greatest operatic performer of all time, but there's more to opera than simply acting. When she was singing in her upper register, she had a lot of harsh tones and a dreadful wobbling that was really distracting. Renee Fleming has a lovely voice, but her forte is slow prolonged singing. Her runs are frequently sloppy, and her trill is inconsistent.

Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, (November 7, 1926 - October 10, 2010) was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano best remembered for her contributions to the resurgence of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s to the 1980s. Although music reviewers criticized her weak diction, she possessed a voice with outstanding agility, correct intonation, "supremely" pinpoint staccatos, a trill, and a superb upper register.

Sutherland became a founding patron and active supporter of the Tait Memorial Trust in London in 1992. A charitable organization founded by Isla Baring OAM, the daughter of Sir Frank Tait of J. C. Williamson's will assist young Australian performing artists in the United Kingdom. Sir Frank Tait was the Australian businessman who organized and handled the Sutherland-Williamson tour of Australia in 1965. Sutherland House and the Dame Joan Sutherland Centre at St Catherine's School in Waverley, as well as the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre (JSPAC) in Penrith, are all named after her.

Awards:

• Grammy AwardsWins: 2 (Nominations: 3)
• Kennedy Center Honors (Wins: 1)
• Primetime Emmy Award (Nominations: 4)

Renée Lynn Fleming (born February 14, 1959) is a well-known American soprano who has appeared in opera, concerts, records, theater, cinema, and large public events. Fleming, who received the National Medal of Arts, has been nominated for 17 Grammy Awards and has won four of them. Other prominent honors include the French government's Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, Germany's Cross of the Order of Merit, Sweden's Polar Music Prize, and honorary membership in England's Royal Academy of Music. Fleming has earned name recognition outside of the classical music world, which is unusual among performers whose careers began in opera.

Fleming's voice is a rich lyric soprano. Aside from her native English, she has played coloratura, lyric, and lighter spinto soprano operatic parts in Italian, German, French, Czech, and Russian. She has spent most of her career performing new music, including world premieres of operas, concert pieces, and songs written for her by André Previn, Caroline Shaw, Kevin Puts, Anders Hillborg, Nico Muhly, Henri Dutilleux, Brad Mehldau, and Wayne Shorter. Fleming became the first woman in the Metropolitan Opera's 125-year history to solo headline a season-opening night gala in 2008. "In my long life, I have encountered maybe two sopranos with this level of singing," conductor Sir Georg Solti remarked of Fleming. "The other was Renata Tebaldi."

Awards:

• Grammy AwardsWins: 5 (Nominations: 12)
• Classic Brit Awards (Wins: 1)
• Tony Award (Nominations: 1)

Mara de Montserrat Bibiana was a Spanish operatic singer who died on October 6, 2018. She performed a broad range of parts but is most recognized for her interpretations of Verdi and the bel canto repertoire, particularly the works of Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti. When she stepped in for a performance of Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia at Carnegie Hall in 1965, she gained international attention, and she went on to perform at major opera houses. Her voice has been described as clean but forceful, with excellent control of vocal shadings and delicate pianissimo.

Caballé first gained popularity among non-classical music fans in 1987, when she recorded "Barcelona," a duet with Freddie Mercury that became the official theme song for the 1992 Olympic Games at the request of the International Olympic Committee. She garnered several international honors as well as Grammy nominations for a number of her albums.

Awards:

• Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Solo (Wins: 1969)
• Grammy Awards (Nominations: 1)
• Primetime Emmy Award (Nominations: 2)

Jacqueline Marie Evancho (born April 9, 2000) is a popular American classical crossover vocalist who rose to prominence at a young age. She has released a platinum-selling EP and eight albums since 2009, including three Billboard 200 top ten debuts. She has also hosted three PBS music specials on her own.

Jacqueline Marie "Jackie" Evancho is an American classical crossover vocalist who rose to prominence at a young age. She has released an EP, eight albums, including a platinum and gold album, and three Billboard 200 top ten debuts since 2009. Evancho's most recent album, 'The Debut,' earned her eighth straight No. 1 on the Billboard Classical Albums list. Evancho sang the U.S. national anthem during Donald Trump's presidential inauguration in 2017 and became the youngest artist ever to perform a concert series at Café Carlyle.

Voices that have not been stretched beyond their capacities or darkened to give the impression of a much older sound. She is not, and should not be, grouped with Kirsten Flagstad or Joan Sutherland. Evancho's voice, if properly taught (at the appropriate age to begin such training), may have revealed a good voice capable of an operatic career when she was in her early twenties, but nothing good will come of it at her age. She'll end up like Charlotte Church, who nearly destroyed her voice but is now doing pop music. Remove this child from the list! She has no place among the actual greats of opera!

Awards:

• Grammy Awards (Nominations: 1)

Sarah Brightman (born 14 August 1960 in Berkhamsted) is a British classical crossover soprano, singer, songwriter, actor, dancer, and musician. Brightman began her career as a member of the dance ensemble Hot Gossip and then as a solo artist, releasing many disco hits. She made her West End musical theatre début in Cats in 1981, when she met composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, whom she eventually married. She went on to star in various West End and Broadway musicals, including The Phantom of the Opera, in which she played Christine Daaé for the first time. Phantom's original London cast record was reissued in CD format in 1987 and sold 40 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling cast album of all time.

After leaving the theater and divorcing Lloyd Webber, Brightman relaunched her music career as a classical crossover performer with former Enigma producer Frank Peterson. She has been acknowledged as the genre's inventor and remains one of its most notable singers, having sold more than 25 million CDs and two million DVDs worldwide, establishing herself as the world's best-selling soprano.

Awards:

• Echo Award for Best Single of the Year (National) (Wins: 1997)
• Grammy Awards (Nominations: 1)
• Echo Music Prize (Nominations: 2)

Dame Kiri Jeanette Claire Te Kanawa is a former New Zealand opera soprano who was born on March 6, 1944. Her lyric soprano voice was characterized as "mellow yet bright, warm, abundant, and natural." In the mid-1980s, Te Kanawa had three top 40 albums in Australia. Te Kanawa has won awards in a variety of nations for her performances of works in a variety of languages stretching from the 17th to the 20th century. She is well known for her theatrical performances of princesses, nobles, and other comparable roles in the works of Mozart, Strauss, Verdi, Handel, and Puccini.

Despite the fact that she rarely sung opera later in her career, Te Kanawa often performed in concert and recitals, provided masterclasses, and helped aspiring opera singers establish their careers. Her final performance occurred in October 2016 in Ballarat, Australia, however, she did not announce her retirement until September 2017.

Awards:

• Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording (Nominations: 1984)
• Brit Award for Best Classical Recording (Nominations: 1984)

Dame Olga Maria Elisabeth Friederike Schwarzkopf, DBE was a German-born Austro-British soprano who died on August 3, 2006. She was a leading lieder singer and is well-known for her interpretations of Viennese operetta as well as Mozart, Wagner, and Richard Strauss operas. She worked as a vocal coach all around the world when she retired from the theatre. She is regarded as one of the greatest sopranos of the twentieth century.

Schwarzkopf was given Austrian citizenship in 1945, allowing her to perform at the Vienna State Opera (Wiener Staatsoper). In 1947 and 1948, Schwarzkopf toured with the Vienna State Opera, performing as Donna Elvira in Mozart's Don Giovanni at London's Royal Opera House at Covent Garden on September 16, 1947, and as the Countess in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro at La Scala on December 28, 1948, which became one of her signature roles.

Schwarzkopf's final operatic performance was as the Marschallin on December 31, 1971, at the La Monnaie theatre in Brussels. She committed herself solely to lieder performances for the following many years. Walter Legge died of a heart attack on March 17, 1979. He defied doctor's recommendations to rest and attended Schwarzkopf's farewell concert in Zurich two days later. He died three days later.

Awards:

• Grammy Hall of Fame (2008)

Mary Violet Leontyne Price (born February 10, 1927) is an American soprano who was the first African American soprano to achieve international recognition. She began a lengthy relationship with the Metropolitan Opera in 1961, when she was the first African American to be a major performer. She sang at the world's biggest opera houses, including the Royal Opera House, the San Francisco Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and La Scala, where she was the first African American to sing a leading part. She was most known for her portrayal of the main role in Verdi's Aida.

Leontyne Price was more than simply a soprano vocalist; she was a true opera singer. She was the genuine article! She possessed a wonderful deep rich voice, which she utilized with intellect and feeling, and she was one of the finest exponents of Verdi's operas. To discover her equal, look to Renata Tebaldi, Claudia Muzio, Rlizabeth Rethberg, and Rosa Ponselle.

Awards:

• Grammy Awards (Nominations: 16)
• Primetime Emmy Award (Nominations: 4)
• Kennedy Center Honors (Wins: 1)