RUTH ANN SWENSON made her San Francisco Opera debut during her Adler Fellowship as Despina in Così fan tutte in 1983. The Merola Opera Program alumna has returned to the Company in more than a dozen major roles, including Nannetta (Falstaff), Gilda (Rigoletto), Juliette (Roméo et Juliette), Inès (L’Africaine), Adina (L’Elisir d’Amore), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Ophélie (Hamlet), Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare), Violetta (La Traviata), Countess Almaviva (Le Nozze di Figaro), and the title roles of Lucia di Lammermoor, Manon, Semele, and The Ballad of Baby Doe. She has won critical and public accolades for performances at major theaters, including Marguerite (Faust), Micaëla (Carmen), Mimì (La Bohème), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro), Rosina (Il Barbiere di Siviglia), Elvira (I Puritani), Zerbinetta (Ariadne auf Naxos), and all three heroines in Les Contes d’Hoffmann at the Metropolitan Opera; Countess Almaviva, Norina (Don Pasquale), and Anne Trulove (The Rake’s Progress) at Lyric Opera of Chicago; Manon, Gilda, and Giulietta (I Capuleti e i Montecchi) at Paris Opera; Semele and Violetta at Royal Opera, Covent Garden; Constanze (The Abduction from the Seraglio) at Bavarian State Opera; and Gilda at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. In recent seasons Swenson has greatly expanded her repertoire with many important new roles such as Amina (La Sonnambula), the title role of Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, and Amelia Grimaldi (Simon Boccanegra). Other recent engagements include Cleopatra, Marguerite, and Violetta at the Met; Marguerite at Cincinnati Opera; and her role debut as Hanna Glawari in The Merry Widow at the Dallas Opera. She holds an honorary doctorate from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.