She was born in Kolín, Czech Republic, 11/7/1923. She studied piano and violin from an early age in her native town and then took vocal training lessons from Jarmila Vavrdová at the Prague Conservatory in the period 1942-49. In 1949 she first appears at the Mährisch State Theatre in Ostrava in the opera Káťa Kabanová by Janácek in the role of the same name. In 1952 she was hired in the 'Smetana' theatre in Prague,while, at the same time, during the period 1954-59, she was colaborating with the National Theatre of Prague. Until 1959 she would appear often in the Czech Republic (Οstrava, Prague) and in Bratislava, where, among others, she played the heroines of the same name in the operas Rusalka by Dvořák and Aida, as well as Leonora in The Troubadour [Il trovatore] by Verdi. From 1956 until 1984 she appeared often in the Vienna State Opera, while from 1960 she started to collaborate with the Berlin State Opera appearing in works like Ariadne on Naxos [Ariadne auf Naxos], Tosca, Don Carlos and The Knight of the Rose [Der Rosenkavalier]. In the Bayreuth Festival she sang the role of Venus in Tannhäuser (1965, 1966), Gudrun in Twilight of the Gods [Götterdämmerung] (1966, 1967), Ortrud in Lohengrin (1968, 1971), Kundry in Parsifal (1969) and Brünnhilde in the Ring of the Nibelung [Der Ring des Nibelungen] (1966, 1967). She sang the part of Leonore from the opera Fidelio by Beethoven in the Vienna State Opera (1956), the Metropolitan Opera in New York (1966) and the Greek National Opera (1968, Herodion). She was honored with the National Award of the GDR (previously East Germany). She also sang in Hannover, London, Copenhagen, Dresden, Leipzig, Russia, France and Belgium.