She was born in Minneapolis (Minnesota) on 27/12/1947. She studied at the Curtis Institute of Music under the tutelage of Euphemia Gregory. Upon her graduation she left for Europe where she debuted as Zerlina [Don Giovanni] at the Linz Opera (1969). She sang starring roles in most of the major opera houses and festivals, including those of Salzburg, Glyndebourne, Aix-en-Provence, Bregenz, Montpelier, etc. She has sung under the baton of world famous conductors including Karl Böhm, Riccardo Muti, Daniel Barenboim and many others. Acclaimed stage directors she has collaborated with include Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, Günther Rennert, Otto Schenk and Giorgio Strehler. In addition to standard classical Italian and French works, her repertoire also includes Monteverdi’s trilogy [The Coronation of Poppaea/L’ incoronazione di Poppea, The Return of Ulysses to his Homeland/Il ritorno di Ulisse in patria, and Orfeo], Gluck’s opera Orfeo ed Euridice, Handel’s operas Acis and Galatea and Giulio Cesare in Egitto, operas by Mozart and Richard Strauss’ operas [Ariadne auf Naxos, The Silent Woman/Die schweigsame Frau] etc. She participated in opera and operetta films for the German Television. She recorded a number of operas under Herbert von Karajan: Die Zauberflote (DG), Der Rosenkavalier (DG), Parsifal (DG), the 9th Symphony of Beethoven (DG), Bruckner’s Te deum (DG) and Falstaff (Philips). She has also recorded operas by Monteverdi and Mercadante (Teldec, Nuova Era). In recent years, she has dedicated more of her time to pedagogy and is presently professor of voice at the Hochschule für Musik in Bern and has led Master Classes in Italy, Canada, Switzerland and the USA. She has worked with the GNO once, in the opera The abduction from the seraglio [Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail] as Konstanze (1993-94)