Carmen balthrop biography

Professor Carmen Balthrop passed away on September 5, 2021, at age 73 following a yearlong battle with cancer. Visit the UMD School of Music's In Memoriam to her life and legacy.

Balthrop made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Pamina in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, having been the last of the first place winners in the Metropolitan Opera National Competition in New York.

Acclaimed by The Washington Post as “electrifying... a consummate performer,” by The New York Times as “a voice of power and uncommon tonal purity” and “a rapturously beautiful voice” by The Miami Herald, this American soprano has an astonishing range of repertoire from Baroque opera and song to contemporary literature.

She has performed leading roles with some of the world's major opera companies and symphony orchestras, including the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Washington Opera, Canadian Opera, Deutsche Oper (Berlin), Teatro La Fenice (Venice), the New Y