Joyce Arleen Auger (September 13, 1939 – June 10, 1993)was an American soprano, admired for her coloratura voice and interpretations of works by Bach, Handel, Haydn, Monteverdi, Gluck, and Mozart. 　　Auger was born in South Gate, California and lived for many years in Europe in Vienna and Frankfurt, finally returning to the U.S. to Hartsdale, New York. She learned piano and violin as a child. She received a BA in Education from California State University at Long Beach in 1963, and her first job was as a kindergarten and first grade teacher. 　　Between 1965 and 1967, she studied voice with tenor Ralph Errolle in South Pasadena, California, supporting herself by teaching first grade and church and synagogue singing jobs on the weekends. Miss Auger began her professional singing career after winning the I. Viktor Fuchs Vocal Competition in Los Angeles in 1967, which brought her some singing engagements and airfare to Vienna; she also appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra at this time. She was signed by the Vienna Staatsoper soon after her arrival there—despite her lack of knowledge of the German language—after impressing Josef Krips, remaining with the company for seven years. Her debut was in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte under Krips. She made her American debut with the same opera in 1969, with the New York City Opera. Her Metropolitan Opera debut was as Marzelline in Fidelio, under Karl Böhm. 　　Given her background in education, Auger was a natural vocal teacher. Miss Auger left the State Opera in 1974 to pursue her burgeoning concert career and to devote more time to teaching at the Salzburg Mozarteum, where she held a full professorship for a time in the early 70's. Among her pupils was soprano Renée Fleming, who studied with her in Germany during her year there as a Fulbright scholar.[3] In the mid 70's, she traveled to Japan with Helmuth Rilling, serving at the last minute as a soloist in Bach's St. Matthew Passion. (She learned the part on the plane.) It was the beginning of a long and fruitful association with the German conductor, one that has yielded over 40 recordings Her debut at La Scala was in 1975 in L'enfant et les sortilèges. From this time, she turned to lyrical roles in opera, preferring to focus on her career as a concert singer, in early music as well as lieder, often accompanied in the latter by pianist Irwin Gage. She performed most of the soprano parts in Helmuth Rilling's Bach cantata cycle of the mid-1970s to mid-1980s, appearing several times at Rilling's Oregon Bach Festival. At the other end of the spectrum, she commissioned new song cycles by Libby Larsen (Sonnets from the Portuguese) and Judith Lang Zaimont. Her association with Mr. Rilling led to Miss Auger's first break in the United States, in 1980, when Blanche Moyse, the director of the New England Bach Festival, heard her sing with Mr. Rilling at the Oregon Bach Festival and signed her for a series of concerts the following season. 　　One reason she sang more concerts and recitals than she did opera was her determination to control her own destiny. I've signed opera contracts where I had been told I'd be working with a certain conductor and a certain stage director. But by the time I've gotten there, I've found a completely different group of people. I may not have agreed with their interpretation, their method of working, or their musical tastes. But I've been stuck, with no choice but to go and do what's required or make problems. And I don't like to make problems. I don't like to rant and rave. 　　Although still not a household name, Miss Auger briefly came to the attention of hundreds of millions of television viewers (around 700 million) on July 23, 1986, when she sang Mozart's Exsultate, Jubilate at the royal wedding of Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew.