Janet Perry is a celebrated operatic soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

. As a child of eleven, she was seen in a stage-version of The Wizard of Oz, at the St Paul Civic Opera. Following high school, she matriculated at the Curtis Institute of Music

Curtis Institute of Music

The Curtis Institute of Music is a conservatory in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that offers courses of study leading to a performance Diploma, Bachelor of Music, Master of Music in Opera, and Professional Studies Certificate in Opera. According to statistics compiled by U.S...

, under the tutelage of Mme Eufemia Giannini Gregory.

Having earned her Bachelor of Music, she left for Europe, where she debuted at the Linz Opera, as Zerlina in Don Giovanni, in 1969. In subsequent seasons, Miss Perry was featured in most of the Continent's major opera houses, as well as most of its famed festivals, including those of Salzburg, Glyndebourne, Aix-en-Provence and Bregenz. A particular favorite of the late conductor Herbert von Karajan

Herbert von Karajan

Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years...

, she has also worked with Carlos Kleiber

Carlos Kleiber

Carlos Kleiber was a German-born, Austrian classical conductor who spent most of his early life in Berlin, Buenos Aires, Vienna and New York City, and from the early 1960s his professional career in Germany.- Early career :...

, Karl Böhm

Karl Böhm

Karl August Leopold Böhm was an Austrian conductor. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century.- Education :...

, Riccardo Muti

Riccardo Muti

Riccardo Muti, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI is an Italian conductor and music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.-Childhood and education:...

, Daniel Barenboim

Daniel Barenboim

Daniel Barenboim, KBE is an Argentinian-Israeli pianist and conductor. He has served as music director of several major symphonic and operatic orchestras and made numerous recordings....

, Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Nikolaus Harnoncourt is an Austrian conductor, particularly known for his historically informed performances of music from the Classical era and earlier. Starting out as a classical cellist, he founded his own period instrument ensemble in the 1950s, and became a pioneer of the Early Music movement...

, Mstislav Rostropovich

Mstislav Rostropovich

Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich, KBE , known to close friends as Slava, was a Soviet and Russian cellist and conductor. He was married to the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya. He is widely considered to have been the greatest cellist of the second half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest of...

, Rafael Kubelík

Rafael Kubelík

Rafael Jeroným Kubelík was a Czech conductor and composer.-Early life:Kubelík was born in Býchory, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary, today's Czech Republic. He was the sixth child of the Bohemian violinist Jan Kubelík, whom the younger Kubelík described as "a kind of god to me." His mother was a Hungarian...

 and Wolfgang Sawallisch

Wolfgang Sawallisch

Wolfgang Sawallisch is a retired German conductor and pianist.-Biography:Sawallisch was born in Munich, and studied composition and pianoforte there privately: at the conclusion of the war, in 1946 he continued his studies at the Munich High School for Music and passed his final examination for...

. Acclaimed stage directors she has collaborated with include Jean-Pierre Ponnelle

Jean-Pierre Ponnelle

Jean-Pierre Ponnelle was a noted French opera director.-Biography:Ponnelle was born in Paris. He studied philosophy, art, and history there and, in 1952, began his career in Germany as a theatre designer for Hans Werner Henze's opera Boulevard Solitude...

, Günther Rennert

Günther Rennert

Günther Rennert was a German opera director and administrator.Rennert was born in Essen, Rhine Province. Starting as a film director in 1933, he then became involved in the operatic theatre, becoming an assistant to Walter Felsenstein at the Oper Frankfurt...

, Otto Schenk

Otto Schenk

Otto Schenk is an Austrian actor, and theater and opera director.-Life and career:Schenk was born to Catholic parents. His father, a lawyer, had Jewish roots and therefore lost his job after the Anschluss in 1938...

 and Giorgio Strehler

Giorgio Strehler

Giorgio Strehler was an Italian opera and theatre director.-Biography:Strehler was born in Barcola, Trieste to an Austrian father and a Franco-Slovene mother; he grew up speaking Italian but spoke French well and his German was passable. He became suddenly fatherless at the age of three, his...

.
In recent years, Miss Perry has dedicated more of her time to pedagogy.

Abridged discography

• Smetana: The Bartered Bride [as Esmaralda] {in German} (Stratas, Kollo; Krombholc, 1975) Eurodisc
• Verdi: Falstaff [as Nannetta] (Kabaivanska, Ludwig, Araiza, Taddei; Karajan, 1980) Philips
  Philips
  Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
  
  
• Mozart: Die Zauberflöte [as Papagena] (Mathis, Ott, Araiza, van Dam; Karajan, 1980) Deutsche Grammophon
  Deutsche Grammophon
  Deutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label which was the foundation of the future corporation to be known as PolyGram. It is now part of Universal Music Group since its acquisition and absorption of PolyGram in 1999, and it is also UMG's oldest active label...
  
  
• Mozart: Thamos, König in Ägypten (Harnoncourt, 1980) Teldec
  Teldec
  The Teldec is a German record label in Hamburg, Germany. Today the label is a property of Warner Music Group.-History:...
  
  
• Mozart: "Great" Mass in C minor (Hendricks, Schreier, Luxon; Karajan, 1982) Deutsche Grammophon
• R.Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier [as Sophie] (Tomowa-Sintow, Baltsa, Moll; Karajan, 1982) Deutsche Grammophon
• Beethoven: Ninth Symphony (Baltsa, Cole, van Dam; Karajan, 1983) Deutsche Grammophon
• Bruckner: Te Deum (Karajan, 1984) Deutsche Grammophon
• Mercadante: Il bravo (Aprea, 1990) [live] Nuova Era

Abridged videography

• Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro [as Barbarina] (Freni, Te Kanawa, Ewing, Prey, Fischer-Dieskau; Böhm, Ponnelle, 1976)
• Verdi: Falstaff (Kabaivanska, Ludwig, Araiza, Taddei; Karajan, Karajan, 1982) [live]
• R.Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier (Tomowa-Sintow, Baltsa, Moll; Karajan, Karajan, 1984) [live]
• J.Strauß II: Die Fledermaus [as Adele] (Coburn, Faßbaender, Wächter; C.Kleiber, Schenk, 1987) [live]

External links

• Miss Perry's web-site: http://www.janetperry.com
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M94dFDWCx8s YouTube: Janet Perry in an excerpt from Fra Diavolo (1976).