Internationally renowned as the finest Mozart and Strauss soprano since World War II, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was a preeminent performer in both opera and Lieder for three decades. She is as popular today as when she gave her farewell recital in 1979; Schwarzkopf's master classes have been televised, and she remains one of EMI's best-selling recording artists.

In this first full-length biography, Alan Jefferson illuminates Schwarzkopf's remarkable life and career, analyzing in fascinating detail her skillful and distinguished performances on the opera stage and in the recording studio. Jefferson examines her unique vocal and interpretative gifts, although acknowledging that charges of artifice and mannerism leveled at her by some critics are not without merit.

He draws on extensive research and archival documentation, including the Nazi Party's two-thousand-page file on Schwarzkopf, to explore her tenure as a soloist at the Deutsches Opernhaus in Berlin during Hitler's regime as well as her active and willing involvement in the Nazi Party. Jefferson also provides a revealing discussion of Schwarzkopf's complex partnership with and marriage to the maverick impresario and record producer Walter Legge.

He considers her working relationships with Europe's leading conductors, including Wilhelm Furtwangler, Victor de Sabata, Karl Bohm, and, in particular, Herbert von Karajan, whose influence on Schwarzkopf's operatic career was not always beneficial.