Decca has signed the Polish soprano Aleksandra Kurzak, currently wooing audiences at Covent Garden as Rosina in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia (“Her high notes ping crystal-clear around Christian Fenouillat's high-walled box of a set with a nonchalance that suits the wilful minx she portrays; she has Rosina's sugar and spice held in perfect balance.” Erica Jeal in The Guardian.)

The first disc will focus on lyric and coloratura roles featuring operas that Kurzak has either performed on stage or is currently preparing (Susanna in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, bel canto roles from Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, Bellini’s I Puritani and Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, plus the First Act scena from La traviata). The disc also includes a aria from perhaps the greatest of all 19th-century Polish operas, The Haunted Manor by Stanislaw Moniuszko. She will be partnered by the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, conducted by its music director designate Omer Wellber.

Kurzak can be heard before the autumn release of her solo album as she joins the tenor Joseph Calleja on his next album in duets from Puccini’s La bohème and Bizet’s Les pêcheurs de perles (due for release this spring). “It is always a big moment when we welcome a new soprano to Decca, the singers’ label,” commented Decca’s general manager Paul Moseley. “I am convinced that Aleksandra is the new star we were seeking. Her warm, flexible voice records beautifully and above all she is a true musician as well as a phenomenal actress and singer.”

The 2010-11 season has seen Kurzak performing Lucia di Lammermoor (Seattle), Violetta in La traviata (Hamburg, Warsaw and Turin), Adina in L’elisir d’amore (Valencia and Vienna Staatsoper), Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro (Madrid) as well as Rosina at Covent Garden.