Julia Faulkner made her début at the Vienna State Opera in the 1991/92 season with her acclaimed portrayal of the title rôle in the Richard Strauss opera Arabella. She also won high critical praise for her performances as the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro and the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier. The following season in Vienna brought similar success with the roles of the Countess in Capriccio, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni and Gutrune in a new production of Götterdämmerung. Other engagements have taken her to Hamburg State Opera, where she opened the 1992 season in the title role of Schumann's opera Genoveva. Julia Faulkner was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and had her principal musical training at the University of Indiana, Bloomington, winning distinction in particular in 1985 in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in New York. She made her European début the following year in Lyon, where she sang Arminda in Mozart's La finta giardiniera, returning the following year to sing Alice Ford in Verdi's Falstaff. In 1987 she joined the ensemble of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, embarking on a busy and distinguished international career.
