On May 15, Dame Felicity Lott has died at the age of 79.

The news comes days after the soprano gave an interview with the BBC in which announced she had terminal cancer.

Born on May 8, 1947 in Cheltenham to a family of amateur musicians, Lott grew up as a lover of all things French and read French and Latin at Royal Holloway. After a year near Grenoble, she found an inspiring and encouraging teacher who set her on her path as a singer.

Lott went on to study at the Royal Academy of Music where she met Graham Johnson who, in 1976, invited her to sing in the inauguration of his hugely influential Songmakers’ Almanac. Graham introduced the soprano to a vast repertoire of song which went on to be a major part of her output, especially at Wigmore Hall.

She made her operatic debut in 1975 singing Pamina at English National Opera and in 1976 she debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in the premiere of Henze’s “We Come to the River.” That same year she also began her close association with the Glyndebourne Festival, where she performed numerous roles such as Octavian in “Der Rosenkavalier,” The Countess in “Capriccio,” Anne in “The Rake’s Progress,” Pamina in “Die  Zauberflöte,” Fiordiligi in “Così Fan Tutte,” Helena in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Countess Almaviva in “Le Nozze Di Figaro,” Christine in “Intermezzo,” the title role of “Arabella,” Donna Elvira in “Don Giovanni,” Lady Billows in “Albert Herring,” and Hanna Glawari in “Die Lustige Witwe.”

She went on to perform at the Metropolitan Opera, the Châtelet and Bastille in Paris, Bayerische Staatsoper (where she was named a Kammersängerin), and the Wiener Staatsoper.

Lott sang a number of French roles including Poulenc’s Blanche de la Force, Charpentier’s “Louise” and Offenbach’s “La Grand-Duchesse de Gerolstein” and “La Belle Hélène.” For her work with French culture she received the Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 2025.

In the later part of her career she made her West End debut as Heidi Schiller in Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies.” In 2024 she gave final opera performances at the Paris Opera Bastille as La Duchesse de Crakentorp in “La fille du régiment,” and her final solo song recital at the Théâtre de l’Athénée in Paris in May 2025.

Lott had many honorary doctorates from the universities of Oxford, London, Leicester, Sussex, the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Glasgow, and the Sorbonne in Paris. She also sang at the wedding of Prince Andrew in 1986  and was a vice-president of the British Youth Opera and The Bach Choir. In 2010, she was presented with The Wigmore Hall Medal and was a Patron of the British Voice Association and a Patron of Bampton Classical Opera.