The American mezzo-soprano Regina Resnik – who gave 328 performances at New York’s Met in 39 roles – has died at the age of 90. Born in the Bronx to Ukrainian-Jewish parents, Resnik (originally Resnick) showed early promise, and started taking vocal lessons aged 13. At her parents’ suggestion she declined a place at Juilliard, preferring to study music education at Hunter College in the belief that if the singing failed she could at least teach.

In 1942 Fritz Busch engaged Resnik to sing Lady Macbeth and soon afterwards she impressed Erich Kleiber. She made her Met debut as Leonora in Verdi’s Il trovatore (replacing an indisposed Zinka Milanov). In 1953 she made her Bayreuth debut as Sieglinde in Die Walküre under Clemens Krauss who suggested she explore the mezzo repertoire. After study with Giuseppe Danise she started singing mezzo roles and very soon was heard on all the great operatic stages of the world in a remarkably broad repertoire, Carmen being perhaps her signature role (it was the role of her Covent Garden debut opposite Jon Vickers’s Don José and Joan Sutherland's Micaëla). Among the many parts she sang at the Met was Ellen Orford in the New York premiere of Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes. (Switching from soprano to mezzo made her one of very few singers to have sung both Aida and Amneris, as well as Mrs Ford and Mistress Quickly in Verdi's Falstaff.)

On record, Resnik can be heard as Count Orlovsky (in Karajan’s EMI Fledermaus), the Countess in Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades (Rostropovich/DG), Klytemnestra (Solti’s Decca Elektra) and Carmen (Schippers/Decca) among many others. A recital record for Decca (with Edward Downes) was greeted by Philip Hope-Wallace in April 1962 with the comment: ‘It is years since I heard a better Carmen... Here is the “tug” in the voice – like Mary Garden or Supervia. Not to be overlooked, this Resnik recital. Nor will it be!’

James Jolly