Joyce DiDonato has won the Best Classical Vocal Solo award for her album Diva, Divo at this year’s Grammy awards, held on 12 February.
The album is a collection of mezzo-soprano arias from male and female roles, including the title role in Rossini's La Cenerentola, Romeo in Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi, and Cherubino in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro.
As well as taking home an award the opera star performed the aria Non più mesta, from Rossini’s La Cenerentola – making her the first classical singer ever to perform at the ceremony.
The Grammys had been downsized this year and the number of classical categories reduced: Best Classical Album and Best Classical Crossover Album have been removed completely.
On accepting the award, DiDonato said: ‘Thank you for letting an opera girl come into this.’
Other classical winners at this year’s awards included conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, who won Best Orchestral Performance with their recording of Brahms’s Symphony No. 4; composer and conductor Eric Whitacre’s Light & Gold, which won the Best Choral Performance category and the Metropolitan Opera’s recording of John Adams’s opera Doctor Atomic winning Best Opera Recording.
Mel Spencer