Nobody had to persuade Angela Gheorghiu to sing, just as nobody doubted that it would become her life. The daughter of a train driver, she was born in 1965, growing up in Adjud in Romanian Moldova, and her evident talent took her to Bucharest - to the George Enescu Lyceum - at the age of 14. It was a demanding course of study - with acting, ballet and piano included - and there were three lessons a week, four times a year with a remarkable woman singing teacher, Mia Barbu.

She stayed in Bucharest to go to its Academy of Music and graduated with first class honours at 23. Artists, confined behind an Iron Curtain, had limited professional opportunities, but the fall of the Ceausescu regime opened doors of opportunity for Angela Gheorghiu. She was able to take part in a televised concert for young singers in Amsterdam and then go to auditions at Covent Garden, where she made an immediate impact. Peter Katona, the Royal Opera’s artistic administrator responsible for casting, invited her to make her debut in La Bohème. She thought it wise to choose something less ambitious, Zerlina in Don Giovanni - soon regretting it, though not the opportunity, since she found the role too low, too short, and not sufficiently challenging. But real challenge was not far away.

Mimi (La Bohème), Liu (Turandot), Micaëla (Carmen) and Nina in Massenet’s Chérubin followed and she made her debut in Vienna and Hamburg in 1992 as Adina, and at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 1993 as Mimi, winning increasingly rapturous receptions from audiences and critics who acclaimed her sensuous lyric soprano voice, her beauty, her stage presence and her commitment to the words. But nothing in the acclaim Miss Gheorghiu had received up to that point was of the same intensity as her first Violetta in her sensational 1994 La Traviata with Sir Georg Solti. At one rehearsal Solti said: "I was in tears. I had to go out. The girl is wonderful. She can do anything."

Such was the response to her performance that the BBC2 schedules were cleared for an immediate transmission of the opera, and Decca brought forward its schedule by six months to record this remarkable event. The resulting CD and video were two of the best-selling classical recordings of 1995. Angela Gheorghiu was still only 29 years old. "Angela Gheorghiu’s Violetta ranks with the best...Gheorghiu uses her beautiful voice to convey that throbbing vulnerability and sadness." Fanfare "Angela Gheorghiu portrays a credible and moving Violetta...This Traviata will take some beating." Classic CD

Somebody else - another rising star - obviously also thought she was wonderful. Miss Gheorghiu met Roberto Alagna when she was singing Mimi at Covent Garden in 1994. He made a sensation all his own there in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, and he and Angela Gheorghiu were married in New York in 1996 when they were over there for performances of La Bohème at the Metropolitan Opera. In 1996 they scored a notable success in L‘elisir d’amore at the Opéra de Lyon, subsequently recorded for release by Decca. "Gheorghiu’s Adina remains unsurpassed among her contemporaries." said The Times of her interpretation of the role on disc.

Miss Gheorghiu repeated her Covent Garden triumph in La Traviata in Jonathan Miller’s new production at the Paris Bastille Opera in 1997. Much in demand by opera houses all over the world, she is appearing with her husband in L’elisir d’amore at the Metropolitan Opera in November 1999, and her Covent Garden plans include Roméo et Juliette.

Angela Gheorghiu’s marriage is rare in any form of the arts; husbands and wives do not often see their stars rising in harmony. "I think our performances gain from our being together because musically we are at one and we discuss everything together - each note, each stage movement, each word", she says. "But while this is musically and, of course, personally rewarding, it is not confining."

Her first solo recital with conductor John Mauceri for Decca included arias from La Bohème, Don Pasquale and Falstaff. While travelling the world, Angela Gheorghiu developed a great interest in musical cultures. She likes movies, Mario Lanza, folk song and popular music, and she provided a notable testimony to her travels in My World - a selection of 25 songs from 15 different countries, released in 1998.

Angela Gheorghiu’s latest releases on Decca are La Bohème, recorded with Roberto Alagna, Simon Keenlyside, Elisabetta Scano and the orchestra of La Scala, Milan, conducted by Riccardo Chailly, and a disc of Verdi arias again with Riccardo Chailly.