Karan Armstrong

Born on December 14, 1941, in Havre, Montana, Karan Armstrong was an operatic lyric singer known for her ambitious and demanding repertoire of operas by Puccini and Wagner as well as several contemporary productions. She studied piano and clarinet at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, graduating in 1963 and then studying with singers Lotte Lehmann, Fritz Zweig, and Tilly de Garmo. Winning first prize in the San Francisco Opera competition, she made her stage debut in 1965 and then the following year, she won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Along with engagements with the New York City Opera from 1969 to 1977, her success quickly spread to Europe. Karan Armstrong performed in Tosca at La Fenice in Venice and, in 1979, in Wagner's Lohengrin at the Bayreuth Festival. It was there that she met her future husband, Götz Friedrich, director of the Berlin Opera. In 1980, she performed in Pelléas et Mélisande by Debussy at the Paris Opera and was celebrated for her vocal and acting performance in Alban Berg’s operas Lulu and Wozzeck. Karan Armstrong starred in world premieres of contemporary works such as Gottfried von Einem's Jesu Hochzeit (1980), Giuseppe Sinopoli’s Lou Salomé (1981) and York Höller's Der Meister und Margarita (1989). In Germany, she was twice honored with the title of Kammersänger, an honor given to distinguished opera and classical singers. Her catalog of releases includes Wagner: Lohengrin (1983), Berio: Un Re in Ascolto (1984), Henze: The Bassarids (1991), and Höller: Mythos · Antiphon · Traumspiel · Improvisation sur le nom de Pierre Boulez. Karan Armstrong, who continued to perform on stage until 2015, died on September 28, 2021, at the age of 79.

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