When Dame Margaret Price died in January 2011, the musical world reacted in an understandably emotional fashion. By contrast, the Welsh soprano herself was a woman with an understated approach to her life, eschewing the frenetic international star system in favour of loyalty to a select few major opera houses. She bade farewell to public performance in 1999, retiring to rural Wales where she turned to breeding golden retrievers. Although a local vicar persuaded her to perform in a charity concert, she found the occasion so nerve-wracking that her dogs finally became the only audience for her singing.