favorite SOPRANO?

Freni
Miricioiu
High Pitch Eric

I go with Callas.
She has unique sense of drama and passion that infuses her vocals that others just cannot match. Although technically not greatest vocal range compared to someone like Sutherland, he voice in the 1950's was magnificent and can be heard on quality mono recordings during this period. The stereo work from early 1960's is still pretty good but best years behind her. One of the best collections is "La Divina" 3CD set which contains some prime mono era work........many many more good collections also available.

Although most of Cecilia Bartoli's work is with Rossini and Mozart, she is in her real element with the rare Vivaldi and Gluck collections. Comes packaged in cool hardbound book format

Dawn Upshaw gets my vote. She may not have the most "gorgeous" soprano voice but she has an intelligence to her musicality that's amazing.

Tooter, well said. Every Dawn Upshaw's disc is well conceived and satisfying. A friend of mine saw her recently at the Opera National de Paris in a production of Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmelites and thought she was amazing.

Yes, Kiri Te Kanawa should have been on my short list of most beautiful soprano voices, and here's a stunning, offbeat track of hers that most opera buffs don't know about. In 1974, when she was in her youthful prime, not yet an internationally famous singer, she recorded the aria from the mythical opera Salammbo in the RCA "Classic Film Scores" series: the recording (issued as both LP and CD) is "Citizen Kane: Classic Film Scores of Bernard Herrmann," Charles Gerhardt conducting the National Philharmonic Orchestra. Like all the recordings in this series, this was engineered by the great Kenneth Wilkinson, and this is one of Wilkie's triumphs: the sound is simply awesome; the music is colorful, imaginative, original, with lots of unusual sounds; the entire recording is an audiophile's delight from beginning to end. Young Kiri's singing is breathtaking, and her aria, played on a first-rate system, will knock your socks off.