It was opening night of the San Francisco Opera, September 1994. The production was Macbeth. Three years after her sensational success as Elektra, Dame Gwyneth Jones was returning to the War Memorial Opera House in a role that had marked her US Opera debut 28 years earlier in Dallas.

The audience had been treated to the sight of witches on bungee cords bouncing up and down and, now, a precipitous wall at the top of which a door opened. Letter in hand out came Lady Macbeth. As she began walking down the steep staircase she began to speak. The poison in her voice curdled milk in the basement restaurant, the tension created by her descent caused people to inhale audibly.

And then she sang, and those of us in Balcony Rear were knocked backwards by her attack on 'Vieni! t'affretta.' No, this role may not have been her wisest choice at that point, for the voice was simply not capable of the necessary agility. But there was no mistaking that here was a performance that epitomized live opera at its most exciting, most suspenseful and most fallible. Three years later I can still feel vibrations from her "Sir di Caudore" and neither the memories of Dame Gwyneth's cheesy costume or the scathing reviews of that Opening Night - no, not even repeated listenings to Callas' recordings of the scene -- can erase that feeling.

The very first time I saw Dame Gwyneth perform was outdoors in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park in 1986. She sang an 'In Questa Reggia' that startled the birds from the trees! That season she was performing Salome. Two years later she was back as the Dyer's Wife and then in 1990 she returned for two Ring Cycles. I was at her second Cycle and became completely devoted to her. Throughout the three performances she was there putting her whole body behind her singing, her face, arms and torso showing us the exuberant Brunnhilde, the slumped head and dragging feet showing us the defeated one. The ending of Siegfried was orgasmic and the Immolation Scene was breathtaking. But the greatest moment of that Ring Cycle, for me, was in Act 2 of Die Walkure, where she appears before the exhausted Siegmund. Dame Gwyneth made clear through her fully-realized performance that this scene was in fact the heart of the entire cycle. (Fortunately her Brunnhilde survives on the Boulez Centenary Ring.)

Gwyneth Jones will almost always show you something in a role that you haven't seen before. She often finds a vitality and a sexuality that other singers overlook or shy away from. All of our Turandots can show her icy heart finally melting in the third Act but Gwyneth reveals a suppressed sexuality in the first act without singing a note. By the Riddle scene she is beside herself with fear not that Calaf will WIN but that he will LOSE. (And, really, who wouldn't prefer the dark and mysterious unknown Prince to the wimpy Prince of Persia!)

Every Elektra succeeds in communicating the character's devotion to her father, but only Dame Gwyneth can make you aware that she has the hots for her missing brother. Adele H. - like, she is so consumed by the fantasy that she has trouble recognizing him when he does reappear. At the same time she can give you a glimpse of Elektra's own recognition of what she has become and how far down she has gone. As Tessi Tura noted, "The end result? Even an old pro like Helga Dernesch ended up getting blown off the stage by the sheer forcefulness of Dame Gwyneth's performance."

For sheer joyous sexual power, look at the Boulez Siegfried. The close of that opera is so erotically charged that we are almost relieved when the curtain falls -- not a moment too soon.

At the age of 59 Dame Gwyneth added the role of Norma to her repertoire. Tapes of the performance reveal some vocal shortcomings, it is true. But the commitment and passion of her singing make you wish she made this role a regular part of her repertoire alongside so many other passionate and noble characters she has interpreted so successfully.

Dame Gwyneth has told interviewers that she tries to develop a character so profoundly that her performance will withstand the excesses of any production. Whether they dress her in deer antlers and football boots or leather pants and spike heels her Brunnhilde remains true and intact. And whether perched atop a stark metal scaffold or surrounded by gaudy Chinoiserie, her Turandot is always HER Turandot.