Hildegard Behrens (9 February 1937 – 18 August 2009) was a German operatic soprano with a wide repertoire including Wagner, Weber, Mozart, Richard Strauss, and Alban Berg roles.

[1] Her stage debut was as the Countess in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro in Freiburg in 1971.

[1] In the 1975–76 season, while rehearsing for Alban Berg's Wozzeck, she was "discovered" by Herbert von Karajan, who was then looking for a new Salome.

In 1990, she sang the role of Brünnhilde in the PBS broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera's performances of Der Ring des Nibelungen.

[3] Hildegard Behrens died of a sudden aortic aneurysm, aged 72, in hospital in Tokyo, Japan, where she had been attending the Kusatsu International Summer Music Festival.