Teresa Stratas

Career Trajectory

After winning the Met's National Council Auditions at twenty-one, Stratas built an international career distinguished by psychological depth and fearless interpretive choices, from the fragile heroines of Puccini to the atonal complexities of Berg. Her 1979 creation of the title role in the first complete performance of Lulu under Boulez at the Paris Opéra—a performance that earned a Grammy—represented the apex of her engagement with twentieth-century modernism. She retired while still in her prime, having established herself as one of the most intellectually rigorous and emotionally penetrating sopranos of her era.