On Oct. 24, soprano Benita Valente died at 91.

Born on Oct. 19, 1934, in Delano, California, she was first noticed by a high-school teacher who recommended lessons with Lotte Lehmann in Santa Barbara. She went on to study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia with Martial Singher and later with Margaret Harshaw, where she graduated in 1960.

In 1958, Valente won a student competition of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and in 1960, won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. She went on to perform at the Marlboro Music Festival and appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra 60 times.

The soprano began her operatic career in 1962 in Germany when she made her debut at the Theater Freiburg as Pamina in Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte.” She remained with the company for a year, and in 1966-67 she became a member of the Staatstheater Nürnberg. From there she went on to appear with such companies as Opernhaus Dortmund, Zürich, Strasbourg Opera House, Dutch National Opera, and at the Festival dei Due Mondi.

In the U.S., Valente performed at the Boston Opera and Baltimore Opera. In 1973, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Pamina in “Die Zauberflöte” and went on to perform 74 times with the company. Among her roles with the Met included Almirena in Handel’s “Rinaldo,” Susanna in “The Marriage of Figaro,” Ilia in “Idomeneo,” Gilda in “Rigoletto,” and Nanetta in “Falstaff.” She also appeared at the Santa Fé Opera, Michigan Opera, Los Angeles Opera, the Philadelphia Opera, and Vancouver Opera, among many others.

Valente retired from the stage in 2000 and became an influential teacher. She taught vocal master classes, at the Marlboro Music School, in the Cincinnati Conservatory program in Lucca, Italy, at the European Mozart Academy in Poland, in the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artists Development Program, at Stearns Institute for Young Artists at Ravinia, in the voung artist program of the National Arts Centre’s Summer Music Institute in Ottawa, and at Temple University.

For her career, the soprano received the Grammy Award for her recording of Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 2 and was the recipient of the Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award.

Valente left many recordings, including a lieder album of music by Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Strauss, and Wolf, Haydn’s “Nelson Mass,” and Mahler’s Second Symphony, among many others.