Mezzo-soprano Rosalind Plowright and tenor Stuart Burrows have been awarded the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours for services to music. In addition, the early music soprano Emma Kirkby has been appointed Dame of the British Empire.
One of Britain's most beloved singers, Rosalind Plowright has graced the stages of all the world's great opera houses. Originally performing soprano roles, she famously recorded Verdi's two Leonora roles: in Il trovatore with Carlo Maria Giulini and Placido Domingo (for which she was awarded the Prix Fondation Fanny Heldy) and in La forza del Destino with Giuseppe Sinopoli. Her other renowned recordings include Donizetti's Mary Stuart with Charles Mackerras and Janet Baker, Desdemona in Verdi's Otello with Mark Elder and Amneris in Aida alongside Dennis O'Neill.
Later, she moved to the mezzo-soprano range. She was most recently seen at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 2005, as Fricka in Wagner's Ring Cycle, a role to which she returns this autumn in a sold-out run of three complete cycles.
During the next year she also appears as Gertrude in Hansel und Gretel at the Metropolitan Opera and as the Mother in Dallapiccola's Il prigioniero at the Paris Opera.
Welsh tenor Stuart Burrows is a similarly well-loved and travelled singer of all the world's major opera stages. Making his debut at Covent Garden in 1967, Burrows went on to sing roles in operas as diverse as Don Pasquale, Cosė fan tutte, La Sonnambula, Faust and Don Giovanni there, also appearing at La Scala in 1978 in Berlioz's La damnation de Faust, and he starred in major roles at the Met for twelve consecutive seasons.
He sang with some of the world's greatest conductors, including Georg Solti and Bernstein, and his television programme Stuart Burrows Sings is reported to have been watched by up to eighteen million viewers per week in Great Britain.
Dame Emma Kirkby was recently voted one of the top twenty sopranos of all time by BBC Music Magazine. Her father was the naval officer Geoffrey Kirkby (winner of three Distinguished Service Crosses in World War Two).
Initially, she had few hopes for her singing career because of her early music repertoire, which was not in fashion at the time of her training. However, she went on to become one of the most admired singers of her generation, making over a hundred recordings of renaissance, classical, and particularly baroque music.
She was appointed OBE in 2000 and was today awarded the DBE.