Helga Dernesch

"Her voice had great richness and power, and her strikingly handsome stage appearance and intense acting made her a compelling performer.

[1] She has also appeared in most of the world's other great opera houses, including Zürich, Amsterdam, Glyndebourne, London, Paris, San Francisco, New York and Chicago in such roles as Leonore, Sieglinde and Brünnhilde in Die Walküre, Isolde, The Dyer's Wife in Die Frau ohne Schatten, Clytemnestra in Elektra, Kabanicha in Káťa Kabanová, The Countess in Pique Dame, and Larina in Eugen Onegin.

She continued to sing regularly at the Bavarian State Opera where she sang the Marschallin in 1979 and created the role of Goneril in the premiere of Aribert Reimann's Lear in 1978, a role she also sang in several other German houses and, in an English translation, at San Francisco Opera in 1981.

In October 2000, she created the title role in another Reimann opera, Bernarda Albas Haus in Munich.

She returned to Met in 1994 for performances as Madame de Croissy in Dialogues des Carmélites and Adelaide in Arabella, and in 1995 as Leocadia Begbick in Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.