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Emma Shapplin, neoclassical artist author and composer, started her music career in classical music but then moved to hard rock. When she was 18, singer Jean-Patrick Capdevielle convinced her to return to taking classical lessons so as to improve her singing technique. She discovered that although rock had given her more artistic freedom and hedonistic lifestyle than classical music, it was still not enough for her, so she decided to create her own style. This became a combination of archaic opera and modern trance and/or pop music. Shapplin and Capdevielle subsequently worked together on her first release, Carmine Meo.Capdevielle wrote Carmine Meo.

Although Shapplin was raised speaking French, and sings some of her songs in that language, most of the songs on Carmine Meo were translated from the French in which Capdevielle wrote them in into Latin and old Italian, in which Shapplin sang them. On her second release, Etterna, she decided to perform in baroque (17th-century) Italian. She did so because, according to her, "It's a language that sings naturally"; and because this is closer to the modern Italian language she used in some of her first classical singing lessons, while the older Italian "lends itself more to poetry, to dreaming, and to drama too". In particular, she used the spelling "Etterna" for the album and track title because this is the way Dante wrote, rather than the modern Italian "Eterna". She occasionally performs one of her hit songs, La Notte Etterna, in Spanish (as La Noche Eterna). Her single "Discovering Yourself" is in English. Shapplin has co-operated with Greek singer George Dalaras and she visits Greece almost every year for concerts in Athens's ancient Odeon of Herod Atticus.

Shapplin was relatively unknown in the United States until composer Graeme Revell used her voice on his score for the movie Red Planet. They later collaborated on her second album Etterna, with Revell producing all of her songs.



Audio CD (November 4, 2003) 
Original Release Date: June 18, 2002 
Number of Discs: 1 
Format: Enhanced 
Label: Ark 21 
ASIN: B0000DZ3EZ 

1. Sospir' di Voi  
2. Aedeus 
3. Me Non Venni  
4. Notte Etterna
5. Leonora 
6. Celtica  
7. Silente Riva 
8. Spesso, Sprofondo 
9. Mai Più Serena 
10. Nell' Aria Bruna 
11. Finale 
12. Notte Etterna [remix]