Johanna Meier

Johanna Meier (born February 13, 1938) is an American operatic soprano. She has been described as "one of the foremost Wagnerian sopranos of her era". She had an international career, including fourteen years at the Metropolitan Opera and three summers singing the role of Isolde in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde for the Bayreuth Festival—the Festival's first American Isolde.

Born in Chicago, Meier was raised in Spearfish, South Dakota and continues to contribute to the State, having founded the School of Opera and Vocal Arts as part of the Black Hills State University Summer Institute of the Arts, for which she also serves as Artistic Director. As her family was touring with the Luenen Passion Play when she was born, she had her stage debut at five weeks and grew up playing various parts; she continued the family's tradition through 2008, staging the play with her husband each summer in Spearfish, with Meier playing the role of Mary.

Meier trained at the University of Miami's Frost School of Music and received the school's first Distinguished Alumnus Award. She also studied under John Brownlee at the Manhattan School of Music before beginning her professional career in 1969 at the New York City Opera, where she sang Mozart roles, slowly adding in roles from Richard Strauss's operas before finally taking on the Wagnerian roles for which she is best known. The City Opera recognized that she was talented both as a singer and as an actress and cast her in several leads.

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