Kathleen Ferrier (1912–1953) started singing professionally late; she was thirty when she did her first performance as a soloist (in Händel’s ‘Messiah’). She only performed in two operas, Britten’s ‘The Rape of Lucretia’ (1946) and Gluck’s ‘Orfeo ed Eudridice’ (1947). Her rising star as a highly characteristic alto was cut short when she died at only 41; from breast cancer. Luckily, she managed to do many recordings in her too brief career, among the most treasured are Mahler’s ‘Das Lied von der Erde’ and ‘Kindertotenlieder’.

Read more about Kathleen Ferrier on Last.fm.