Watts, Helen (1927– )

Welsh contralto. She studied at the Royal Academy of Music, London and made her concert debut in 1955. She sang with the Handel Opera Society from 1958 in Theodora, and as Ino and Rinaldo. In 1964 she toured Russia with the English Opera Group. She made her US debut in New York three years later in The Mass of Life by Delius. She was heard in operas by Verdi, Tippett, and Wagner but was best known in Lieder and oratorio; she was also much admired in Mahler, Elgar, and Berlioz.