One of her country’s best young opera stars, Rebecca Evans was born in Pontrhydyfen, Wales and trained as a nurse before friends encouraged her to move into professional singing. It was a happy move, leading to early success in 1991 when she won the Best Welsh Singer prize, awarded only every three years by the Arts Council of Wales. While gaining an increasingly high profile on stage, Rebecca has also worked for television, contributing to programmes by internationally acclaimed artists such as Dennis O’Neill and Bryn Terfel, one of her main supporters at the beginning of her career.

The rise to fame of this talented singer has been astonishingly rapid, but it is made all the more understandable by this early recital disc which includes some of the most popular opera arias in the repertoire.