In 1975, besides winning the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, she captivated national attention with her interpretation of the title role in Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha at Houston Grand Opera (later produced on Broadway and also televised in a 1978 Houston revival). She returned in 1979 as Ruggero in Rossini’s Tancredi opposite Marylyn Horne in the title role and in 1986 performed Bess here in Houston Grand Opera’s touring production of Porgy and Bess.

She reprised the role in the 1976 revival. The luminous voice of Maryland native Carmen Balthrop was first heard in San Francisco in 1973 when she sang the soprano solos in Spring Opera Theater’s staged production of Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion. The Sacramento Bee praised her “acting tour de force” and observed that “her soprano is of complementary quality, gorgeous and velvety in its middle registers and spine-tingling up high.” (JM) Sharing the bill with Menotti’s The Medium starring Régine Crespin, Armstrong’s mainstage debut in Poulenc’s one-woman show, La Voix Humaine, would not be overshadowed. But in 1986, she returned to San Francisco, the city where her stage career had begun two decades earlier. As her European commitments increased, Armstrong’s appearances in the United States became less frequent.

Her acclaimed, otherworldly portrayal of Elsa in Friedrich’s production of Lohengrin at the 1979 Bayreuth Festival precipitated a later recording and telecast. In Stuttgart and Berlin, she often collaborated with director Götz Friedrich whom she eventually married. After performing smaller roles at the Met, Armstrong took on leading roles at New York City Opera and was contracted to sing overseas. The following year she won first place at the Metropolitan Opera’s 1966 National Council Finals, securing a cash prize and contract to sing at the Met. She was selected for the Merola Opera Program in 1965 and made her stage debut as Musetta in a Merola production of La Bohème. Born in Havre, Montana, Armstrong took up singing in college and continued her vocal studies with conductor Fritz Zweig and soprano Lotte Lehmann. Karan Armstrong, a leading soprano for nearly four decades with Deutsche Oper Berlin, began her musical journey as an American pianist.

Rossini drivein san francisco opera