Two dazzling American divas headline Opera Company of Philadelphia's spring season.

It finally happened: Record companies have gotten their image-obsessed claws into the opera world. And now more than ever, the opera "industry," if not necessarily the listening public, wants its sopranos to be ready to do a few (nonspeaking) minutes on Letterman. Some of these runway-model-type singers, like Opera Company of Philadelphia alumna Anna Netrebko, have genuine talent; several have crashed and burned almost as fast as television starlets. This situation has spun out of control. Opera should be about total theatrical conviction, not just silhouettes.

Never fear: Opera Company of Philadelphia boasts two exciting sopranos to anchor its spring shows: Angela Brown in Verdi's Aida and Christine Goerke in Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus. These two world-class singers command plenty of glamour and charisma onstage but are keenly aware that they do not have the supertrim bodies of the carb-phobic album-cover babes that recording execs have been desperately pitching the opera world for the last 15 years. In November, Goerke described herself (unfairly, but with typical humor) to The New York Times as "built like a linebacker;" but she made a dizzyingly seductive figure as Handel's sorceress, Alcina, at New York City Opera. Similarly tall and queenly, and bringing dignity and passion to her roles, Angela Brown can cut up a room with her irreverence. (In the unlikely event Soul Plane gets made into an opera, she gets the Mo'Nique role.) By any adult reckoning, these are two of the hottest young sopranos in America, and that includes their voluptuous presences onstage. Opera singers are athletes, varying in weight class as do boxers; they have to be toned to do their job. Projecting one's voice over a large orchestra to a hall seating 2,800 — completely unmiked, as listeners attuned to pop and rock are often surprised to learn — involves a great deal of muscular development and training. Both Brown and Goerke move impressively and can access the Big Emotions that can make opera a uniquely moving art form.

The Indiana-raised Brown's varied experience includes gospel, R&B and classical vocal study with legendary Romanian diva Virginia Zeani. The Academy of Music has borne witness to her rise to fame. As an OCP understudy artist, she stepped into the formidable lead roles of Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos and Verdi's Il Trovatore in 2003, so capably that the company entrusted her with its new production of Don Carlo last year. People came to hear one diva (stellar contralto Ewa Podles) and left buzzing about two. So Philly opera fans weren't surprised by the verdict of acclaim greeting her Oct. 29 Met debut as Aida: a refulgent sound with a dynamite high C. (Soon after, she made the Times' front page, an extraordinary event.) The same day, the Albany label released her spirituals CD, Mosaic. Angela Brown's future seems assured, and it starts right here on Broad Street with six portrayals of Verdi's enslaved but proud Ethiopian princess.

Christine Goerke has already shown her formidable musical and interpretive talents with opera companies and orchestras all over the world. The 2001 recipient of the Richard Tucker Award (the opera world's Heisman Trophy), the Long Island native trained at the Met and soon tackled leads there (and in Paris, London, Florence — the list grows). She also has two Grammys. In October 2003 she joined Tempesta di Mare for a sensational evening of baroque cantatas; her gorgeous, intensely focused singing nearly blew the roof off St. Mark's Church. Goerke has the very rare ability to be funny and moving at once while dazzling your ears; perfect credentials for her first-ever Rosalinde in Strauss' champagne-and-adultery-soaked operetta.

Prima donnas need good partners. OCP welcomes back local favorites Gregg Baker, playing Aida's father, and William Burden, playing Rosalinde's husband — and unknowing suitor, too (ah, those Viennese) — as it introduces Texan tenor star Bruce Ford as Rosalinde's, um, other lover and the Met's splendid young bass Morris Robinson as Egypt's king in Aida.

Aida, Feb. 11-27, Die Fledermaus, April 29-May 15, Opera Company of Philadelphia at the Academy of Music, Broad and Locust sts., 215-893-1999.