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Strauss never lost his love for the human voice – especially soprano – or a keenly honed instinct for the marriage of music and drama. Here are ten of his greatest operas, featuring the greatest Straussian singers and conductors of the last half-century.

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The Erato label flourished from the early 1950s. It is defined both by its discerningly chosen repertoire and by the high quality of its artists — brilliant instrumentalists including Marie-Claire Alain (organ), Maurice André (trumpet), Lily Laskine (harp), Jean-Pierre Rampal (flute), Hélène Grimaud (piano) and outstanding and sympathetic conductors such as Jean-François Paillard, Claudio Scimone, Michel Corboz, John Eliot Gardiner, Marc Minkowski, Ton Koopman and William Christie. Together they recorded a rich catalogue of Baroque — particularly French Baroque — music.

Erato’s second priority was contemporary music, especially that by French composers. No label has better or so faithfully served this repertoire, and this 50-CD edition includes some of its greatest treasures — Maurice Duruflé conducting his Requiem; Pierre Boulez conducting Le Visage nuptial and Le Soleil des eaux, and Stravinsky’s Pulcinella; Yvonne Loriod, Boulez and Marius Constant performing Messiaen; Messiaen playing his own Méditations sur le mystère de la Sainte Trinité; and Darius Milhaud conducting two of his symphonies.

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Following their acquisition of EMI Classics and Virgin Classics, Warner Music Group (WMG) has announced the first step in their plans to bring the artists and catalogues from these two highly respected labels into the Warner Music family, highlighting the central and global role that classics will play in WMG's future.  All artists and catalogues that were signed to Virgin Classics are now part of the newly revived and highly respected label, Erato.  All artists and catalogues that were previously part of the EMI Classics family will be released under the Warner Classics banner.  This move marks the next exciting chapter and new momentum for these renowned artists and legendary catalogues within WMG, where there is – and will continue to be - a deep focus on classical repertoire.  More plans will be announced soon.

Voices of French Opera: Over a century of EMI recordings from Plançon to Petitbon represents the French lyric tradition at its most refined and personal but there are also non-native singers such as Supervía and Lott who have made the language their own, whether in the formal splendour of Lully, the high drama of Berlioz or the intimate tragedies of Poulenc.

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Voices of Russian Opera: EMI’s treasury of Russian singers stretches back to the days of the Imperial Opera, with great voices such as Leonid Sobinov and Medea Mei-Figner. No such collection could be complete without the sonorously dark and instantly memorable bass voices of Chaliapin and Christoff, but there is room for many singers now little known, as well as Western singers, such as Lucia Popp and Evelyn Lear, who revealed a special sympathy with this repertoire.

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The 200th anniversary of both Wagner and Verdi, the 100th birthday of Benjamin Britten and the 50th anniversary of Francis Poulencs death all take place in this year. Many great singers give us even more reason to celebrate: There is Maria Callas' 90th, Janet Bakers 80th and Roberto Alagnas 50th birthday. 
This album includes great artists like Mariss Jansons, Marek Janowski, Klaus Tennstedt, Riccardo Muti, Rolando Villazón, Natalie Dessay, Diana Damrau, Philippe Jaroussky and Otto Klemperer.

Every release of the series so far has been a great opera festival, but none has ever been as colourful as OPERA 2013.

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Eminence launched careers: most notably Nigel Kennedy’s, with his Gramophone Record of the Year-winning disc of Elgar’s Violin Concerto, but it also nurtured many other great musicians near the start of what would prove to be illustrious careers (such as Tasmin Little and Franz Welser-Möst) and captured others in their prime, such as Vernon Handley and Sir Charles Mackerras. 

The 50 CD-collection includes:

John Mark Ainsley · Philip Fowke · Monica Huggett · Peter Hurford · Della Jones

Simon Keenlyside · Nigel Kennedy · Stephen Kovacevich · Piers Lane · Keith Lewis

Tasmin Little · Felicity Lott · Malcolm Martineau · Jane Parker-Smith · Joan Rodgers

Anthony Rolfe Johnson · Bryn Terfel · Barry Tuckwell · Elizabeth Wallfisch

Raphael Wallfisch · Willard White · Catherine Wyn-Rogers

Chilingirian Quartet · Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge · English Chamber Orchestra

Hanover Band · London Philharmonic Orchestra · Vasari Singers · Vellinger String Quartet

Serge Baudo · Mark Elder · Andrew Litton · Vernon Handley · Sir Charles Mackerras

Karl Anton Rickenbacher  · Franz Welser-Möst