[1] After auditioning for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, she was put under contract by the musical director Rafael Kubelík and made her debut in 1955, appearing also under him in The Magic Flute in 1956[2] and as Ascagne in Les Troyens.
Many major roles followed at Covent Garden, including her Nedda in Pagliacci which brought her international acclaim in Franco Zeffirelli's controversial production during the 1959/1960 season.
Philip Hope-Wallace, The Guardian 's music critic, noted that the magic which emanated from the stage came in part from "the silvery top of Joan Carlyle's voice".
[3] 1962 saw her Pamina in The Magic Flute conducted by Otto Klemperer;[4] her first Countess in Le nozze di Figaro was under Solti, with Tito Gobbi as the Count.
Other roles, which she performed throughout many seasons included Oscar in Un ballo in maschera, a performance which Montague Haltrecht, in his biography of the first ROH general administrator David Webster, describes as "the young Joan Carlyle makes a pageboy with a delicious vocal glitter";[5] Ascanius in Les Troyens; and Mimi in Peter Brook's staging of La bohème which resulted in a BBC Television production of the opera.
In Italian opera her successes include Desdemona in Verdi's Otello with James McCracken in the 1965–66 season, and subsequently with Vickers in 1972, where her performance was noted by Hope-Wallace as "experienced, dignified, and often very touching, though at first too pale, muffled and cautious.
In her first recording, Carlyle was featured as "The Voice From Heaven" in a Decca release of Verdi's Don Carlo in June/July 1965 with the ROH Orchestra conducted by Solti.