On April 13, Dawn Upshaw will be in London to open the Barbican's Present Voices series with Osvaldo Golijov's opera Ainadamar (The Fountain of Tears), in a part she originated at the piece's world premiere at Tanglewood in 2003. In advance of the performance, the Observer's Peter Conrad sat down with the soprano, whom he finds to be "anchored to the earth, which is what makes her vocal flights above it---for instance when she sings the annunciating angel in Messiaen's St François d'Assise---so wondrous."

To hear excerpts from Dawn's performance of the Messiaen from the Nonesuch album Voices of Light (2004), click here.

To read the Observer profile, visit music.guardian.co.uk. For ticket and program information, visit barbican.org.uk.