She won a national piano competition at the age of 15 and the following year earned a certificate as a piano teacher. She worked as a telephone operator until 1940, when she won a local singing competition. She then began to study voice and gave factory recitals for war workers, often arranging the songs herself.

In 1943, in George Frideric Handel's Messiah, she emerged as an oratorio singer of first rank. In 1946, at Benjamin Britten's request, she sang the title role in his opera The Rape of Lucretia at the Glyndebourne Festival. She also became closely identified with the role of Orfeo in Christoph Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice. English (1947) and American (1948) performances of Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, conducted by Bruno Walter, led her to specialize in Mahler's music and to give lieder recitals with Walter. The contralto parts in Britten's Spring Symphony and the canticle Abraham and Isaac were written for her, as was Sir Arthur Bliss's scena The Enchantress. Her career was cut short in its prime by her death from cancer.