Beckmann was born in Jamestown, North Dakota,[2] into a talented musical family, the daughter of an opera singer and a pianist.
In 1961 she won a singing contest in San Francisco, through which she was awarded a scholarship to study with Henny Wolff at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg and with Franziska Martienssen-Lohmann in Düsseldorf.
[2] This was the beginning of an ongoing and successful career with engagements at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.
She appeared in Albert Lortzing's Der Wildschütz and was a "most alluring Eurydice in Jacques Offenbach's parody of the Orpheus story".
[4] Beckmann has won acclaim for her interpretations of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, and has recorded cantatas such as Höchsterwünschtes Freudenfest, BWV 194.