MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Emma Matthews in Monte Carlo

"Emma Matthews is without doubt the hottest opera star in Australia" Opera Now
"A dazzling artist" The Australian
"A national treasure" Richard Mills

Emma Matthews is one of the brightest stars in the antipodean operatic skies. Her voice is pure yet rich, capable of dazzling vocal fireworks but equally able to express the subtlest of moods. In this her debut release on Deutsche Grammophon/ABC Classics, she brings the thrilling beauty of her tone to jewels from French and Italian operatic repertoire, as well as music of the 20th and 21st centuries by Bernstein, and Australian composers Richard Mills and Calvin Bowman.

Equally at home with opera and concert repertoire, Emma appears regularly with all the major Australian orchestras and opera companies, as well as at major festivals. She is the recipient of Green Room, Mo and Helpmann Awards.

Her concert performance highlights include her appearance as Special Guest in two Gala Concerts with José Carreras. In 2010 Emma Matthews will make her debut at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in the title role of Janácek's The Cunning Little Vixen to be conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras and her concert debut with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo in Mahler's Fourth Symphony. Later that year she will appear for the first time with Vladimir Ashkenazy, who conducts a performance of the Mahler with the Sydney Symphony.

But Emma's versatility including roles in Berg's Lulu and Richard Mills' Batavia and The Love of the Nightingale. The role of the Nightingale in the latter was conceived for Emma and closes this CD, her first in an exclusive solo signing to Universal Music Australia (Deutsche Grammophon) and ABC Classics. This will be the first time an Australian artist makes a solo record on the Deutsche Grammophon label, widely considered to be the world's most prestigious classical record label.

Recorded in September 2008 in Monte Carlo, the album highlights Romantic opera heroines for which Emma has received glowing praise. Included are key moments from some of these operas - the 'Doll Song' from Les Contes d'Hoffmann, the 'Bell Song' from Lakmé, great scenes from Lucia di Lammermoor and Hamlet, as well as fearless and thrilling coloratura moments in the Proch Theme and Variations and Bernstein's 'Glitter and be gay'. There are two world premieres on the disc - the Nightingale's Song from the close of Richard Mills' The Love of the Nightingale and Calvin Bowman's song Now touch the air softly.

Conducting the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo is Australian-born, UK-based Brad Cohen, who graduated from St. John's College, Oxford, before studying with Sergiu Celibidache and Leonard Bernstein.

Emma takes to the stage in Bellini's The Capulets and the Montagues for Opera Australia from August 11 at the Sydney Opera House. This hard-hitting tragedy about Shakespeare's star-cross'd lovers will showcase Emma's vocal virtuosity when she sings the role of Giulietta for the first time.