Auger, Arleen (1939–1993)

US soprano. Well-known for her lieder recitals, especially Schubert, Wolf, and Berg, she sang with the Vienna State Opera for seven years and specialized in 17th- and 18th-century opera. She made over 170 recordings, and won many awards. In 1986 she sang at the wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson in Westminster Abbey, to a worldwide television audience of 500 million. Millions heard her again in December 1991 in the television broadcast of Mozart's Requiem live from Vienna in commemoration of the bicentenary of the composer's death.

Auger was born and grew up in Long Beach, California. She studied singing and violin at California State University. In her mid-twenties she won a competition to study in Vienna, where she was noticed by the influential conductor Karl Böhm, who chose her to sing Constanze in his recording of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail/Abduction from the Seraglio. She made her Vienna State Opera debut in 1967 as the Queen of the Night in Mozart's The Magic Flute. She remained with the Vienna State Opera for seven years, singing many leading soprano roles, including the Countess in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and the Marschallin, or Field-Marshal's wife, in Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier/The Knight of the Rose. She also sang at most of the other major opera houses and festivals and regularly appeared at the Salzburg Festival. Her first London appearance was in 1985 at the Spitalfields Festival, where she sang the title role in Handel's Alcina, which she also sang in Paris, Geneva, and Los Angeles.