Gabriela Benackova

While best known for her accomplishments in Czech music, particularly that of Dvorák and Smetana, Benackova has performed in nearly all the lirico-spinto soprano roles in the Italian repertoire. She has earned equal praise for her musicianship and vocal beauty, though she is occasionally accused of bringing a non-Italianate coolness to those roles. She has also sung the more lyric Wagner roles, including Eva and Senta. Her opera debut was at the National Theater in Prague, as Natasha in Prokofiev's War and Peace, in 1970. In 1975, she sang her first Jenufa there; like Dvorák'...