"•Baritone James Rutherford here embarks on a Wagner grand tour, ranging from the three operas that ‘made’ Wagner – Der fliegende Holländer, Tannhäuser and Lohengrin – to Parsifal, the composer’s final work. Mr, Rutherford, winner of the first Seattle Opera International Wagner competition in 2006, has since performed in several Wagner productions, and is a noted Hans Sachs of our day.
• He is supported by Bergen Philharmonic under their music director Andrew Litton."

The myth of the modern tenor was born at an 1837 Paris performance of Rossini’s William Tell when Gilbert Duprez first sang a top C in the chest register. The hitherto unknown expressive power provoked a massive audience reaction, and the tenor voice soon became a trademark of the young, valiant hero. Yinjia Gong grew up in Guizhou province, China, developing an interest in music early on. While studying Chinese traditional music he became fascinated with Western opera. In 2008 his admiration for Jussi Björling and Nicolai Gedda took him to Sweden. There Gong's impressive top register soon attracted attention, and in 2011 he was invited to perform at a gala concert at the Royal Swedish Opera, commemorating the centennial of Björling's birth. Gong was given the honour of performing Puccini’s Nessun dorma – one of Björling’s ‘greatest hits’. Naturally, Nessun dorma is also part of the program on Gong's début recording, along with a series of other jewels of the tenor repertoire.