Goethe Lieder

Applauded in the opera houses of New York, Paris, Salzburg, and Vienna for her portrayals of the great Mozart roles, she is equally renowned for work in more remote corners of the repertory - most recently, as the title character in Handel's Theodora, triumphantly staged in Glyndebourne by Peter Sellars. This season she turns her attention to two new roles.

Already a Susanna of the first rank, she now takes up the role of Cherubino in the Metropolitan Opera's Le Nozze di Figaro, and she returns to Salzburg as the heroine in a new production, by Robert Wilson, of Pelléas et Mélisande.

Two-thirds of Ms Upshaw's calendar each season is set aside for work away from the opera stage - as a chamber musician, with major orchestras and in the recording studio. She is regarded as a consummate recitalist, as is confirmed by her 1996/97 schedule, which includes dates in Tokyo, London, Los Angeles and San Francisco, and debut recitals in Carnegie Hall and at the Salzburg Festival. It reveals much about Ms Upshaw's attitude toward music making that her recital work tends to be collaborative in nature, resulting in several important ongoing partnerships. Her engagements with James Levine over the years have led to a recording of Debussy songs to be released at the end of March 1997 on Sony Classical. She tours annually with Richard Goode, and both Margo Garrett and Gilbert Kalish are also long-standing partners. In the 1995-96 season, Ms Upshaw commissioned a staging of Bach's cantata BWV 199 by Peter Sellars as part of a three concert series at New York's 92nd St 'Y' entitled "Voices of the Spirit".