"We have decided together and on perfectly friendly terms with Roberto Alagna to get divorced as soon as possible," Gheorghiu said.

"Each of us will go his own way but we don't rule out performing together again as we have already done," she added.

The famous diva said she was ready to enter the new year "with a new identity" and mentioned London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris and Vienna as possible venues for her concerts in 2013.

Once dubbed opera's "love couple", Gheorghiu, 47, and Alagna, 49, wed in 1996 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York but theirs was an on-off marriage.

The couple separated several years ago, with rumours of a divorce circulating widely.