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.
