The 20 best classical divas

Who will be the new Maria Callas? Here we rate the leading ladies. Plus watch clips and listen to an exclusive Spotify playlist

Angela Gheorghiu

Neil Fisher

18. Elina Garanca

The mezzo to watch in the coming years, though still a mezzo, and therefore battling the difficulties of rivalling Cabell, Royal et al for big gigs and high profile recordings. But the Latvian made a huge splash in Bellini's I Capuleti at Covent Garden last month, and has the great benefit of her frequent colleague Anna Netrebko's record label, who have signed her up and are busy trying to raise her profile.

Voice: 8
Visuals: 6
Roles: 3
Back story: 2
Celeb factor: 1
20/50

Watch Elina Garanca singing from Rossini's La Cenerentola

17. Waltraud Meier

Legendary In Germany, elusive elsewhere, Waltraud Meier is a powerhouse mezzo who on a good day will blow your socks off as Isolde or Kundry. Trouble is, it's a small body of roles that her potent dramatic prescence can do justice to, and she is already moving into the character parts that signal a great singer's twilight years. Still a force to be reckoned with, mind - but Meier has no truck with celebrity.

Voice 7
Visuals 9
Roles 4
Back story 1
Celeb factor 1
22/50

Watch Waltraud Meier sing Beethoven's Fidelio

16. Maesha Bruggergosman

How many opera singers look like disco divas? This wonderfully sassy Canadian soprano is a real one-off, so let’s hope she makes the most of it in the years to come. She could start by getting seen further afield than North America, and dipping more of a toe into opera than she’s hitherto managed.

Voice: 6
Visuals: 7
Roles: 1
Back story: 6
Celeb factor: 2
22/50

Watch Maesha Brueggergosman sing D'Oreste, d'Ajace from Idomeneo

15. Nicole Cabell

Another voice from the new generation that is already capturing attention: Cabell has exotic roots (including both African-American and South Korean elements) which have produced a smooth, rich soprano of class and sophistication. Now we’re waiting for a breakout performance on stage and something on record that shows that her A&R people know what to do with her.

Voice: 6
Visuals: 6
Roles: 5
Back story: 3
Celeb factor: 34
23/50

Watch Nicole Cabell talk about her critically lauded debut recitals in Cardiff

14 Amanda Roocroft

Hugely promoted in the 1990s classical music boom, eventually the bubble burst on Amanda Roocroft - a lyric soprano who never quite delivered the goods on her own spin. But over the last few years she's dusted herself off and come back fighting, winning an Olivier award for her searing Jenufa at English National Opera and impressing with her newfound dramatic skills. A born-again Christian, she's not interested in the big hype of diva-dom, but ENO are lucky to have a house diva as skilled as she is.

Voice: 6
Visuals: 5
Roles: 5
Back story: 5
Celeb factor: 3
24/50

Watch Amanda Roocroft sing Come Scoglio from Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte

13 Barbara Frittoli

Fading badly since she first came to prominence - not because the silky Italian soprano hasn’t got the vocal goods, but because there’s something frustatingly passive about her career path and demeanour. That Frittoli's favourite part seems to be the frightened soprano soloist in Verdi’s Requiem tells you everything you need to know: she’ll never be a tigress in the Italian repertoire that should be her birthright.

Voice: 7
Visuals: 5
Roles: 7
Back story: 3
Celeb factor: 3
25/50

Watch Barbara Frittoli as Desdemona sing the Willow song from Verdi's Otello

12. Kate Royal

Enter said shiny moppet - though that may be a slighty unfair verdict on one of Britain’s big hopes for the future. Armed with a big EMI contract, Royal is getting plenty of moody photoshoots and lush recordings - the continuing question is whether she has the star power to make the clothes fit. In the meantime, nice English girl done good will have to suffice as her USP, though it shouldn’t be the final word.

Voice: 7
Visuals: 7
Roles: 4
Back story: 3
Celeb factor: 4
25/50

Watch Kate Royal sing Delibes's Les filles de Cadix

11. Eva-Maria Westbroek

Even Maria Callas sang Wagner (early on in her career she produced a blinding Isolde), so just because this powerful Dutch soprano is on the road to the big Wagner roles - and already sings an astonishing Sieglinde - doesn’t put her out of the running in the big diva stakes. Still, it’s a handicap: the big German or Russian roles don’t lend themselves to glamour, and Westbroek is already well into the mid-part of her career after many years of setbacks and auditions that went nowhere. She also lacks any support from the record industry, always after the next shiny moppet rather than a survivor like her.

Voice: 9
Visuals: 4
Roles: 4
Back story: 6
Celeb factor: 3
26/50

Watch Eva-Maria Westbroek in Shostakovitch's Lady Macbeth de Mzensk

10. Joyce DiDonato

A fabulous mezzo who should be better known, Joyce DiDonato really is a complete package. She made something really special out of Covent Garden’s tedious new production of “The Barber of Seville”, producing a Rosina of teasing charm and fabulous vocal assurance. But can a professional, affable mezzo like her really break into the diva big-time? Up against Netrebko and her baby or Gheorghiu and her temper, what she badly needs is a gimmick. Her mildly gossipy blog might be it - if she can be persuaded to be more indiscreet.

Voice: 8
Visuals: 7
Roles: 5
Back story: 2
Celeb factor: 5
27/50

Watch Joyce DiDonato sing and discuss Handel Arias

9. Magdalena Kozena

Mrs Simon Rattle has many things going for her - not least the headline-friendly story of how she lured the frizzy haired maestro away from his second wife. On her own merits, she was already a star before she met him, artfully promoted as a sultry Slav by her record label, DG, on her first album of Czech love songs.

And since? The song recitals have impressed much more than opera, where the mezzo can be gawky and mannered. That's a quandary she hasn't yet resolved - although she's a great vocal actress, it doesn't seem like she's fully harnessed those skills to a great staged production.

Voice: 6
Visuals: 5
Roles: 4
Back story: 7
Celeb factor: 6
28/50

Watch Magdalena Kozena sing Bach's Cantata for the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

8. Anna Caterina Antonacci

The Italian sphinx has that all-important Callas flavour: the spice of the unclassifiable. Mezzo? Soprano? She’s never been totally sure, which has kept Antonacci’s voice flitting dangerously (but excitingly) all around the operatic shop. Riveting on stage, the drawback of Antonacci’s odd career is that no-one has ever been able to pin her down. She’s barely known in America, and, pushing 50, time is running out for her to redress the balance. Admittedly remaining aloof in Paris (as Antonacci now mostly does) was Callas’s last trick, but one born more of necessity than artistic achievement.

Voice: 8
Visuals: 9
Roles: 5
Back story: 4
Celeb Factor: 3
29/50

Watch Anna Caterina Antonacci sing Habanera from Bizet's Carmen

7. Cecilia Bartoli

If the world were as obsessed with obscure Baroque operas and bel-canto chansons as Cecilia Bartoli is, the bubbly Italian mezzo would face few rivals for the top slot. But we are aiming for Callas levels of vocal allure, world domination and legendary fame in this chart, and Bartoli’s obscurantism is a hurdle that’s tricky to overcome. So, too, is the slight tendency she’s picked up in recent years to overplay her hand, pouring her powers of vocal expression into the occasional mannerism. She’s still ridiculously picky about performing proper opera on proper world stages, too. That leaves her a glorious one-off: still sellable and charismatic, but arguably reaching something of a mid-career plateau.

Voice: 9
Visuals: 7
Roles: 4
Back story: 4
Celeb factor: 8
32/50

Watch Cecilia Bartoli sing the final section of Mozart's Exsultate Jubilate

6. Danielle de Niese

The youngest kid on the block, and they don’t come more fully-formed than de Niese. Aussie born (of Dutch-Sri Lankan extraction), but Californa-raised, de Niese has been performing for most her life, whether at stage school or on the opera stage. As a result, she’s got the theatrical panache that many of her contemporaries lack - highlighted most obviously by her stellar turn as a scantily-clad Cleopatra in David McVicar’s “Giulio Cesare” at Glyndebourne.

She’s really one to track for the future, though: having a catalogue of characters that’s mostly Handel and Mozart doesn’t really give her much opportunity for red-blooded fervour. Also she’s just announced that she’s marrying the man who owns the Glyndebourne estate and (ultimately) runs the festival. Whiffs of nepotism may grow as the nuptials approach - not necessarily to her disadvantage.

Voice: 7
Visuals: 9
Roles: 5
Back story: 2
Celeb Factor: 6
33-50

Watch Danielle de Niese sing Handel Arias

5. Renee Fleming

Waving the flag for America, Renee Fleming has arguably never been more a more polished performer than she is now. New York’s prima donna assoluta for at least a decade, she sells out nearly everything she sings there, and her first stab at a London Traviata this summer is hugely anticipated.

It’s not that we need a huge strop to improve Fleming’s diva rating. It’s just that her slim pickings on the scandal front are indicative of a wider problem: the curse of the bland. She lacks that Callas-like fire and fury that truly sets a diva apart from the pack. And it’s a problem that doesn’t just afflict her public image, but also her glossy, rather generalised vocal and dramatic style.

Voice: 8
Visuals: 7
Roles: 8
Back story: 4
Celeb factor: 7
34/50

Watch Renee Fleming sing Ave Maria from Verdi's Otello

4. Karita Mattila

The great maverick of diva-dom, the Finnish soprano has the X factor on stage - but has she always used it right? Like Cecilia Bartoli, Mattila has always done things her way, choosing offbeat projects (new works by fellow Finn Kaija Saariaho) and hugely disparate stage roles (try Janacek, Wagner, Verdi, Puccini, Tchaikovsky for range) instead of the obvious. She is still a must-see and a must-hear, whatever she does. And stripping off in Strauss’s Salome (albeit briefly) in the New York Met production added some background juice. But at 49 years old her lustre may now never reach megawatt brilliance, and she lacks a big champion in her (niche) record label, Ondine.

Voice: 9
Visuals: 9
Roles: 6
Back story: 5
Celeb factor: 5
34/50

Watch Karita Mattila sing Rusalka's Song to the Moon with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales

3. Natalie Dessay

Unquestionably the finest actress on the list, a blazing Dessay performance makes Netrebko look like a clockwork doll. She idolises Callas and arguably comes closer than any other opera singer to realising her fusion of drama and music into one gesture, one thought.

She’s edgy, too, though not necessarily to her own benefit. She has spats with directors and in the past has been less than kind about the histrionic flair of some of her colleagues. The difficulty is that this gives her less of a populist touch than some of her rivals - take her as you find her, but don’t expect her to make nice for the PR benefits. And, although her light lyric voice has grown weightier over the years, she’ll never sing the meat and potatoes Italian roles that Netrebko has already set her eyes on.

Voice: 8
Visuals: 10
Roles: 6
Back story: 6
Celeb factor: 5
35/50

Watch Natalie Dessay sing Où va la jeune hindoue from Delibes's Lakmé

2. Angela Gheorghiu

The obvious choice pre-Netrebko, but the Romanian continues to lose ground. The main difficulty now is choosing the right rep: Gheorghiu is so picky, and her voice still on the light side - leaving limited opportunities beyond those delicate flowers such as Mimi in La Boheme, Magda in La rondine and Violetta in La traviata. Trouble is, all those women are supposed to be considerably younger than Gheorghiu now is. The scandal-o-meter, meanwhile, is ticking over nicely (she was recently fired from Chicago Lyric Opera for another no-show at rehearsals) but eventually she may have to realise that there are younger models out there who are considerably more willing to please.

Voice: 7
Visuals: 8
Roles: 6
Back story: 10
Celeb factor: 6
37/50

Watch Angela Gheorghiu sing Habanera from Bizet's Carmen

1. Anna Netrebko

The Russian soprano continues her domination of the operatic globe - even though it’s less than a year since the birth of her first child. But why would that stop her? Even the new baby son (whose father is the hunky Uruguayan baritone Erwin Schrott) added to her star quotient. Netrebko sings a higher concentration of “Callas parts” than any other singer on our list. She cancels just enough performances to add the all-important notes of controversy (a recent no-show at Covent Garden was another smart move). And, most importantly, any vocal deficiences - some bumpiness in the bel-canto rep, diffident diction - are neatly overcome by her theatrical daring and film-star looks. Currently untouchable on all counts, and doesn’t her record label know it.

Voice: 8
Visuals: 10
Roles: 9
Back story: 9
Celeb factor: 9
45/50

Watch Anna Netrebko sing Puccini's O soave fanciulla with Mexican tenor Rolando Villazon

BLOGMYSONG

Que horas são em São Paulo, Brasil ?

segunda-feira, março 30, 2009