"Beyond Imagination"
review by Ed Vincent
"Oak Park Journal Highly Recommended"

The OperaBabes, Karen England and Rebecca Knight have a new
album out called “Beyond Imagination”.  We saw them locally in
Chicago on our television programs.  Reviewing Opera all around the
Chicago area and beyond we were attracted to their CD and their
names.  Their album is a wonderful Classical crossover adventure
that will entertain many Opera lovers, lovers of music, and folks 
who appreciate feminine beauty.

The music chosen for this release is an eclectic treasure of delectable arias spanning many years of  creation. Their execution of these well known and lessor known works of vocal art are incredible and creative, add to that their delightful beauty and you have a DVD begging to be made. 

“La Wally”’ by the 19th century Italian composer Catalani. Ebben is a beautiful and sad at the same time in tune and owing to the fact that Alfredo Catalani (1854 - 1893) died at a young age.  "Ebben? Ne Andro Lontana" is a fine selection from one of the five Operas that
Alfredo Catalani wrote in his lifetime.

“O Fortuna” from the Opera Carmina Burana, by Carl Orff is both
formal in its Latin tongue and delightful in its musical qualities and the OperaBabes bring it to an exciting spotlight.  Carl Orff had been thought of as adding or producing pieces that were a bit “hedonistic” in the their construction.  Orff would be pleased with this album too.

“Chanson Boheme”, from Bizet’s “Carmen” is loved by many and a treasured tune that stands for a Gypsy spirit and song.  There are also a number of musical, orchestral numbers that have had words added to them and sung on the CD. 

Lakme, music by Léo Delibes, and libretto de Edmond Gondinet & Philippe Gille is well known to many as of late, due to its being used
in several television commercials (British Airways for one).  We also hope that both Karen England and Rebecca Knight stay away from poison flowers and make many, many more albums.

Have a look at their website and streaming video.

OperaBabes.com

MTV-Glamorous And Classically Trained, 
‘Babes’ Karen England & Rebecca Knight 
Add A Modern Twist To Classical, Operatic Hits

(New York, NY, October 3, 2002) – They have come a long way since singing for donations in London’s Covent Garden Piazza only a little over a year ago.  Stadiums full of soccer fans across Europe cheer them now.  When their album was released in England, they soared to the top of the classical charts and ruled there for three months.  They look like rock divas, and they sing like angels – OperaBabes are ready to take America by storm with the release of their first recording Beyond Imagination, to be released from Sony Classical on Tuesday, January 14, 2003.

On Beyond Imagination, operatic and classical favorites get a new, exuberant twist from soprano Rebecca Knight and mezzo-soprano Karen England, the beautiful duo from the U.K. known as OperaBabes.  The U.S. release of the album follows the OperaBabes’ first American appearances October 9-12, 2002, at New York’s legendary Café Carlyle, as part of the “Best of British Excellence” Festival, sponsored by Departures Magazine.

Beyond Imagination begins with their first international hit “One Fine Day,” which transforms Puccini’s “Un bel di” from Madama Butterfly with a new musical treatment that features the Japanese drum ensemble Kodo.  (England’s ITV network chose “One Fine Day” as its World Cup theme this year.)  A high-powered version of the famous Flower Duet from Lakmé (heard in British Airways’ popular TV ads) called “Lakmé H2O” is included, as well as fresh takes on favorite selections from Carmen, Kismet, The Tales of Hoffmann, La Wally and Carmina Burana, and great melodies by Beethoven, Grieg, Dvorák, Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky.

Both Knight and England were emerging young opera singers in their native England when they had the inspiration to try the venerable English tradition of busking, a kind of street entertainment.  A talent-spotter saw them in the spring of 2001, signed them to sing an anthem at the F.A. Cup Final, then at the Champions League Final in Milan, and a sensation was born.  Within a year they had a hit record, a sizzling video and an invitation to sing for the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. 

The OperaBabes’ Beyond Imagination will be featured on www.operababes.com, the artists’ domain on Sony Classical’s Web site at www.sonyclassical.com.  The site will include excerpts from the score, images from the film, multimedia, special interactive features and more.  Sony Classical.com is an online resource for exploring the label’s entire catalogue of recordings, and includes sound clips, track listings, cover art and other information about the recordings.  The site also features an online radio show, album supersites, multimedia, artist biographies, tour schedules and discographies for all Sony Classical artists, as well as special promotions, and much more.

OPERABABES
Biography

Just a little over a year ago, opera singers Karen England and Rebecca Knight were singing at London’s Covent Garden – only not in the Royal Opera House, but outside on the Piazza, as “buskers” (street entertainers), vying for the public’s attention and tips with jugglers, mimes and a typical assortment of oddball wannabes.  Within weeks, though, the duo was singing for an audience that numbered in the millions, at the FA (Football Association) Cup Final in Cardiff and, later, the Champion’s League Final in Milan.  Now under exclusive contract to Sony Classical, England and Knight – OperaBabes, for short – have sung at Buckingham Palace and the Royal Albert Hall, and their debut album Beyond Imagination is already burning up the charts in the U.K.  Its U.S. release is scheduled for early 2003.

Call this all a modern-day fairy tale.  Opera figures prominently in the backgrounds of the 28-year-old England and the 32-year-old Knight, and – after very different personal journeys – they met while both were performing in a touring production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute.  Neither was particularly enjoying the grind of the opera circuit.  One day, on a shopping trip that took them by Covent Garden, England paused to watch the buskers in the Piazza and wondered to her friend if they, as opera singers, might busk for fun and profit.  Deciding to have a bash at it, they found the experience unpredictable, even humbling – tips amounting to all of 40p are hardly encouraging for trained artists – but they were spotted in a matter of weeks by a representative of the events-management company The Production Team.  And the OperaBabes were born.

Booked to sing at the 2001 FA Cup Final in Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium, the OperaBabes put a fresh spin on the tradition that has linked football and opera, one that earlier catapulted The Three Tenors and English tenor Russell Watson to worldwide crossover success.  England and Knight sang “Abide With Me” in Cardiff to a cheering crowd of 70,000 and TV audience numbering in the millions.  Their success led to an appearance at the Champion’s League Final in Milan only a week later, where their performance of the Flower Duet from Lakmé won them even greater acclaim … in Italy, the birthplace of opera.

With an explosive success that seemed like overnight stardom, England and Knight then sang for Queen Elizabeth II at the Remembrance Day service in the Royal Albert Hall last November, returning to the hall in February to perform in the Teenage Cancer Trust concerts.  At Buckingham Palace, they sang at the launch of 2002 Commonwealth Games and, in March, wowed another cheering stadium full of sports fans at the England v. Wales Rugby International.

The OperaBabes might be overnight stars, but Karen England and Rebecca Knight have been working toward this breakthrough since their school days.

England knew she wanted to be a singer when she was eight.  Though she grew up in a small Derbyshire village, with a mother who had no interest in classical music, she comes by her talent and ambition innately.  Her mother’s mother had been a promising soprano who had turned down an offer to pursue a career in Italy.  So England sang wherever she could, from school plays and local competitions to the National Youth Choir of Great Britain, with which she toured the world.  She studied English and Music at Leeds University, then went on to post-graduate work at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama before setting out to build a career as an opera singer.

Rebecca Knight was born into the world of opera.  Her mother is the respected English mezzo-soprano Gillian Knight, who met Rebecca’s father when both were performing with London’s D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, the legendary home of Gilbert & Sullivan operetta.  Long before busking with Karen England on the Piazza, Rebecca Knight actually did make a debut onstage at the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden as a child, playing a street urchin.  Determined to follow a path very different from her mother’s, she studied acting and dancing, toured the world and became an award-winning writer for stage, film and TV.  But opera was part of her destiny, and she began to study singing with her mother and soprano Lillian Watson.  After four years of work, Knight decided to pursue a career in opera.

The friendship of England and Knight was sealed on a rainy day in Cambridge, where the two were appearing in The Magic Flute on tour and had a good laugh about a bizarre encounter with a man on the street about Chinese medicine.  It was a funny, offhand beginning for what would quickly become a dynamic creative partnership, one that would take a couple of restless, risk-taking opera singers from the streets to the stratosphere as the OperaBabes.