Top 10 Best Opera Singers

A great opera voice does more than hit the high notes, though yes, those high notes do tend to rearrange the furniture in your soul. You listen for control, emotion, diction, range, and that rare ability to turn a single aria into a full-blown dramatic event. The best opera singers make you feel the story even before you understand every word of Italian, German, French, or the occasional anguished soprano vowel.

As you vote, think about the singers who combine technical brilliance with true theatrical presence. This is your chance to honor the voices that make opera feel grand, human, and just a little dangerous in the best possible way.

The Top Ten

Luciano Pavarotti

Luciano Pavarotti, Cavaliere di Gran Croce, was an Italian operatic tenor who also achieved crossover success in popular music. Known for his televised concerts and media appearances, he became one of the most commercially successful tenors of all time. He was especially renowned for his interpretations... read more

Other opera singers come and go, but no one has or had the glorious voice of Luciano Pavarotti. His voice is truly a magnificent gift from God.

Luciano Pavarotti's voice is better than any other voice, period. He is and was the absolute master of opera.

This is the man with the most magnificent classical and operatic voice the world has ever known.
Enrico Caruso

Enrico Caruso was an Italian operatic tenor. He sang to great acclaim at major opera houses throughout Europe and the Americas, appearing in a wide range of roles from both the Italian and French repertoires. Caruso was one of the first recording artists to gain international fame through early phonograph... read more

While the quality of sound limits the ability to judge beauty, this is the best produced and most powerful of voices. Listen, for example, to Nina. No one else can sing like this. Remember that when he auditioned for Mascagni, the latter said, "Who sent you to me - God?"

Likely the greatest male voice of all time, although only primitive recordings exist from his era. He is definitely the ONLY person for whom a credible argument can be made that he is greater than Pavarotti.
Maria Callas

Maria Callas, Commendatore OMRI, was a Greek-American soprano and one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century. She was widely praised for her bel canto technique, her wide-ranging voice, and her powerful dramatic interpretations. Her legacy continues to inspire opera singers... read more
Kirsten Flagstad

The greatest of Wagnerian sopranos, generally recognized as without peer. Her voice had great beauty and power as befits the need of the idiom.
Joan Sutherland

Joan Sutherland (November 7, 1926 - October 10, 2010) was an Australian operatic dramatic coloratura soprano. She was known for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s to the 1980s. She was the first Australian to win a Grammy Award, receiving it in 1962, and... read more

It's crazy that Aria Tensolin is in 4th place. Gigli, Caruso, and Flagstad are not better than Joan Sutherland. Pavarotti didn't call her the greatest voice he's ever met and the "Voice of the Century" for nothing.
She's only known by opera fans as La Stupenda. No other singer has a title like that, which almost every opera buff knows belongs to Joan Sutherland.

She should be at the top of this list. She was voted #1 in TheTopTens' "10 Greatest Sopranos" and #2 in TheTopTens' "10 Best Female Opera Singers". She is the Queen of Opera.
Andrea Bocelli

Andrea Bocelli is an Italian classical crossover tenor, recording artist, and singer-songwriter. Born with congenital glaucoma, he became permanently blind at the age of 12 following a football accident. He has sold over 75 million records worldwide and is known for blending opera and pop music.

He's a classical crossover singer. It's not the same thing as opera. Others like Jackie Evancho, Sarah Brightman, and such are classical crossover artists as well. They use great vocals over a wide variety of sounds. He's a legend of the blind community.
Plácido Domingo

Again, a great voice and the most versatile of all.
Ezio Pinza

With the most distinctive of voices, Pinza was the ultimate cantabile basso. His Don Giovanni is legendary. A great natural talent, he never studied singing and was at home in all opera (and Broadway - South Pacific). He made his debut at the Met singing Boris Godunov in Italian (the other principals sang in French, the chorus in Russian).

Brilliant voice, and I think basses and baritones are underestimated in such rankings.
Beniamino Gigli

The most beautiful voice. While lacking the weight and power of the Caruso voice, his singing was sensuous and seductive. Before his voice changed, he was acclaimed for his singing of Norma!
Rosa Ponselle

Like Caruso, her recordings do not allow us to hear the full quality of her voice. However, there is no question of her musicianship or the quality and power of her voice. She is clearly the greatest of Italian sopranos against whom all others are measured.

The Newcomers

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Nicolai Ghiaurov
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Magda Olivero

The Contenders

Feodor Chaliapin

What few recordings exist demonstrate the greatest of singing actors. The "greatest recordings of the century disc" shows a phenomenal portrayal of Boris.
Leontyne Price
Ebe Stignani

The great mezzo-soprano's greatness can be heard in the Norma duet and the recording of the Verdi Requiem with Gigli and Pinza.
Fritz Wunderlich
Jussi Björling

While perhaps Domingo belongs here, Björling is a greater musician with a better voice. There exists a wonderful recording of him singing as a boy. The clincher is his recording of Lensky's aria from Onegin.
Leonard Warren

Our great baritone is without peer among many, many great baritones.
When he auditioned at the Met, one of the judges wanted to disqualify him because he thought he was mouthing a recording of a great singer. He could not believe his ears. He died on stage at 48 years old singing Forza del Destino.
Aria Tesolin
Montserrat Caballé
Mario Lanza

Mario Lanza was an American tenor of Italian ancestry, and a Hollywood film star of the late 1940s and 1950s. He began studying to be a professional singer at the age of 16. Lanza gained fame for his powerful voice and starred in films such as The Great Caruso (1951).

Got a horribly raw deal from the opera world. Lanza also wanted to be a movie star, but such activity was frowned upon by the powers that be. He did several excellent movies anyway and was then shunned by the opera establishment despite his great voice and talent.
Marilyn Horne
Renata Tebaldi
Janet Baker

The UK system produces a large number of great musicians. After the incomparable horn player Denis Brain, she is the best. Listen especially to the Elgar "Sea Pictures" and the Wood Dove's Song in Schoenberg's "Gurre-Lieder."
Marian Anderson
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
Birgit Nilsson