Coloratura Emma Matthews is a Principal of the Australian Opera, having started her career as an Opera Australia young artist in 1993. She possesses, in abundance, a natural upper range and the agility of a leading bel canto. No role more than that of Lucia in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor shows this off. Emma undertook this role in John Doyle’s Opera Australia production in 2012 in which the reviewers commented on her conquering with ease the vocal demands, also observing that she took dramatic risks that more conservative singers of earlier generations would never have imagined.
 
Of all composers, the mood and emotions in Mozart’s music are arguably the most diverse - risqué to sombre through to love and the deepest depths of despair. Matthews encapsulates all of these emotions with a natural intuition, from her command and depth of tone in the ‘Queen of the Night Aria’, the intense vengeance clearly burning in her heart, the more subdued Pamina aria 'Ach, ich fühl’s', the loss and lament beautifully portrayed, through to her ravishing rendition of 'Vorrei spiegarvi', the tessitura ideally suited to her voice.


This recording is a terrific blend of well-known arias, with a few lesser known, the Mozartarian vigour in abundance throughout. 


Outside of Australia Emma Matthews has enjoyed several engagements, highlights being her Covent Garden debut in 2010 in the title role of The Cunning Little Vixen, under Sir Charles Mackerras - his last ROH engagement, and performing Mahler’s Symphony No.4 with Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo conducted by the late Yakov Kreizberg.   

Emma Matthews is one of Australia’s most lauded singers, receiving seven Helpmann Awards, nine Green Room Awards, the ‘Mo’ Award for Classical Performer of the Year in 2003 and the Remy Martin Australian Opera Award. On this recording Emma is working with Slovenian conductor Marko Letonja who is Chief Conductor of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and is concurrently Music Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg in France.