My sister, Sally Le Sage, who has died aged 76, was a highly acclaimed soprano.
She had a beautiful bell-like voice and was also a talented actor, which came to light when she was studying opera at the Royal College of Music in her 20s. There she won an exhibition and many major prizes. She toured the US and Canada with the famous Deller Consort until 1967, after which she won second prize in the prestigious International Singing Competition in s'Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands. The critic of the Dutch newspaper De Tijd said of her: "She was kissed by the muses who gave her a very lovely voice." The following year she was awarded a scholarship to study lieder and French song with Pierre Bernac.
Sally soon became known for her recital and oratorio work. She sang the Mozart Mass in C Minor in the Festival Hall, London, and performed at many continental festivals. Her repertoire included works such as A Child of Our Time by Michael Tippett (Stockholm), Ravel's L'Enfant et Les Sortilèges with Simon Rattle (Leeds), Beethoven's 9th Symphony (Amsterdam), the Woodbird in Wagner's Siegfried (Covent Garden and Glyndebourne), and Anne Trulove in The Rake's Progress by Stravinsky (Cambridge Arts Theatre). She made recordings on the Vanguard, Nonsuch, Harmonia Mundi, Oryx and RCA Victor labels.
Born in Farnborough, Kent, she was the youngest of three daughters of Joan (nee Baker) and Jack Dowdall, an advertising executive who coined the phrase: "If you want to get ahead, get a hat." Our parents met singing in an amateur show; I also became a singer, under the name Ann Dowdall, and our sister Susan Dowdall (who died in 1999) was an actor.
Our mother died when Sally was a year old. Between the ages of two to six, she lived in hospital with TB in the hip. At eight she was able to have an operation to stabilise the hip and then went to Badminton school in Bristol.
In later life, Sally taught for a period at the Royal College of Music and also at Clare College, Cambridge. She retired to Malvern in the early 2000s but still taught singing. Sally will be remembered for her engaging and loving personality, her warmth of spirit and unending sense of fun.
She is survived by me, and by her nieces and nephews.