Six of the most inspiring women in musicġ9th place on the greatest sopranos ever list goes to Rosa Ponselle.This happened when I did my first recital at Alice Tully Hall in 1970 and I didn’t understand what was happening. In her own words: ‘I felt moved at the beginning of the concert, when I got a warm reception. And how can you not love a soprano who preferred the intimacy of Lieder recitals to the rough glamour of opera? Anna Picard

In decades progressively intoxicated by larger voices, the candour, delicacy and charm of her singing was uniquely touching. In Schubert, Mozart, Haydn, French Song, and particularly in Bach, she was the standard-bearer for light sopranos: a singer with a natural smile in her voice, and one that could change from a beam of girlish glee to consolation. I can’t remember the recording I heard first – her light-as-air performance of Schubert’s Seligkeit, her deeply-felt St Matthew Passion, her creamy Mozart Concert Arias, or her hilarious rendition of Cole Porter’s ‘It Don’t Mean a Thing’ – but my love of her voice has never faded. Though I never heard her live, Elly Ameling was the patron saint of my musical youth. Born in Rotterdam in 1933, the legendary Dutch soprano charmed audiences worldwide with her Lieder recitals for over four decades, before retiring to teach.

Most famous opera singer