Astrid Varnay

Ibolyka Astrid Maria Varnay (25 April 1918 – 4 September 2006) was an American dramatic soprano of Hungarian heritage and Swedish birth, who did most of her work in the United States and Germany. She was one of the best-known Wagnerian heroic sopranos of her generation. Her voice on record is readily recognisable by its seemingly limitless upper register Both her parents were Hungarian and born in small towns in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but she was born in Stockholm, Sweden, where her parents were living during part of World War I.