British Columbia-born mezzo-soprano Judith Forst had her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1968 as the Page in Rigoletto, and her career has spanned long enough for me to hear her most recently as Madame de Croissy in Robert Carsen’s Dialogues des Carmélites at the Canadian Opera Company in 2013. Judith has sung with the likes of Joan Sutherland, Shirley Verrett, and Teresa Berganza, and she sang everything from Musetta to Hänsel to Giovanna Seymour to Donna Elvira. Her career is enviable, although Judith wouldn’t claim it to be miraculous; hard work and incredible self-awareness has given her an almost five-decade stretch of singing, and she has no plans to stop.

I was thrilled to have the chance to interview Judith while she was at The Banff Centre, working with the artists of the Open Space: Opera in the 21st Century program. Enjoy.