Purcell beats Mozart, Wagner and Puccini

Listeners to the Radio 3 breakfast programme have voted for their top aria as part of the BBC's opera season. Henry Purcell's "When I Am Laid in Earth" beat popular pieces by Mozart, Wagner and Puccini, among others. Listeners had been invited to e-mail the station with their favourite arias. This online vote was used to choose the winner.

Dido and Aeneas is one of the earliest English operas. The aria comes at the end of the work as Dido, queen of Carthage, having been abandoned by the Trojan prince Aeneas, throws herself on a funeral pyre.

The top 10 BBC Radio 2 arias
1. "When I Am Laid in Earth" (Dido and Aeneas, Purcell)
2. "Dove sono" (Marriage of Figaro, Mozart)
3. "Liebestod" (Tristan and Isolde, Wagner)
4. "E lucevan le stelle" (Tosca, Puccini)
5. "Casta diva" (Norma, Bellini)
6. "Song to the Moon" (Rusalka, Dvorak)
7. "Che faro senza, Euridice?" (Orfeo ed Euridice, Gluck)
8. "Der Hölle Rache" (Magic Flute, Mozart)
9. "Ruhe sanft, mein holdes Leben" (Zaide, Mozart)
10. "Glück, das mir verblieb" (Die tote Stadt, Korngold)