The Polish soprano, whose repertoire embraced a colossally wide range of music and periods, has died at the age of 91.

Born in  Landwarów (now Lentvaris in Lithuania), Żylis-Gara studied in Łódź with Olga Felixowna Olgina and, in 1954, won first prize at the Polish Young Vocalists Contest in Warsaw. This led to a number of high-profile invitations, as well as further prizes in vocal competitions in Toulouse and Munich. The latter, the ARD, led to her joining the opera company in Oberhausen and then the company in Dortmund where she enjoyed some of her earliest successes on stage, including, in 1966, the role of Octavian opposite Elisabeth Grümmer’s Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier at the new Opera House in the city. (She stayed in Dortmund until 1970, while also performing throughout Germany.)

The 1960s also saw her establishing a career outside Germany: she appeared at Octavian at Glyndebourne (with Monteserrat Caballé as the Marschallin) in 1965 and two years later returned as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni. She also appeared as the Palais Garner in Paris, at Covent Garden (as Violetta in La traviata) and as Donna Elvira at the Salzburg Festival. The end of the 1960s saw her first appearance at New York’s Met which led to a contract with the company that saw her performing for 14 seasons in roles that included Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Countess Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Amelia (Un ballo in maschera), Madama Butterfly, Desdemona (Verdi's Otello), Elisabeth (Tannhäuser), Elsa (Lohengrin), Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte), Leonora (Il trovatore) Liù (Turandot), Marguerite (Gounod's Faust), Mimì (La bohème), Octavian, Tatiana (Eugene Onegin), and the title roles in Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur, and Puccini's Suor Angelica, Tosca and Manon Lescaut (her last appearance at the Met on March 11, 1984). At the Met Opera Gala in 1972 to honour Sir Rudolf Bing she sang Desdemona opposite Franco Corelli’s Otello with Karl Böhm conducting.

During the 1980s she sang in opera houses throughout the world, including each season at Covent Garden from 1976 to 1980.

Her discography was extensive ranging from Cavalieri's Rappresentatione di Anima et di Corpo (conducted by Mackerras for Archiv) and the St Matthew Passion (Gönnenwein for EMI) to Richard Strauss’s Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos opposite Gundula Janowitz’s Ariadne/Prima Donna (Kempe/EMI), Elisabetta in Verdi’s Don Carlo (Schippers/Myto), Donna Elvira (Böhm/DG), numerous choral works and a number of albums of Polish songs.

Reviewing an Erato recital of Chopin songs in October 1983, John Steane wrote that ‘Żylis-Gara deserves a place in one's collection. With a full-bodied lyric soprano voice, normally of beautiful quality, she has proved herself one of the most reliable of operatic artists in an international career that now spans very nearly 20 years , during which time the recording companies have used but hardly “promoted” her.’