Pierrette Alarie, the coloratura soprano and wife of the tenor Léopold Simoneau, has died: she was 89. Her light, sparkling soprano led her towards such roles as Oscar in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera (with which she made her Met debut in 1945 under the baton of Bruno Walter: she'd won the Metropolitan Auditions of the Air), Xenia in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, Blonde in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Olympia in Offenbach’s Les contes d'Hoffmann. She later took on roles such as Delibes's Lakmé, Donizetti's Lucia and Rosina in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia.

Alarie was born in Montreal to musical parents: her father was a choirmaster and her mother a singer and actress. After singing publicly as a child she went to study at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia on a scholarship with Elisabeth Schumann. She married Léopold Simoneau in 1946 (attaching his surname to her own), and they often appeared together – in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, for example – and made a number of discs including one of Mozart duets which received considerable critical acclaim. In the 1950s and '60s Alarie – usually with Simoneau – appeared at many of Europe's major festivals including Glyndebourne, Aix-en-Provence, Salzburg and Edinburgh. In 1970 they both sang in a performance of Handel's Messiah in Montreal after which she retired from singing. In 1982 they founded the Canada Opera Piccola in British Columbia, and became well known as teachers, both in Montreal and later in Banff.