In 1976 Waltraud Meier decided to concentrate on her singing career and made her début at the Würzburg Opera as Lola in Cavalleria rusticana. During the following years the mezzo-soprano learned a varied repertoire while on the rosters of the opera houses in Mannheim (1976-1978), Dortmund (1980-1983), Hanover (1983-1984) and Stuttgart (1985-1988). In 1980, Waltraud Meier made her international début at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires as Fricka in Die Walküre.

With her triumphant success as Kundry in Wagner's Parsifal at the 1983 Bayreuth Festival, she launched her international career, which took Waltraud Meier to regular appearances at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, La Scala in Milan, the Opéra National in Paris, the Vienna State Opera and the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. After further stirring performances of Kundry in Bayreuth from 1983 to 1993, the singer moved into the dramatic soprano repertoire, in which she made an equally profound impression on both press and public from 1993 as Isolde in Heiner Müller's legendary Tristan und Isolde production under the musical direction of Daniel Barenboim. In Bayreuth as well, Ms Meier performed the role of Sieglinde in Die Walküre in the "Millennium Ring" at the 2000 festival staged by Jürgen Flimm and conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli with Plácido Domingo as her partner. Enthusiastically applauded today as Kundry, Isolde, Ortrud, Venus and Sieglinde, Waltraud Meier has become one of the most internationally significant Wagner singers of our time.

In the Italian and French repertory as well she is recognized world-wide as a highly expressive interpreter, both vocally and dramatically, and much sought-after for such roles as Eboli, Amneris, Didon, Carmen and Santuzza. Waltraud Meier's sensational interpretation of Santuzza under Ricardo Muti marked one of the rare occasions when a German singer has even conquered Italian audiences in their own operatic turf.

The singer collaborated with such important stage directors as Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, Luc Bondy, Harry Kupfer, Götz Friedrich, Klaus-Michael Grüber and Patrice Chéreau, in whose breathtaking Wozzeck production she portrayed Marie with captivating intensity and passion. Great conductors like Daniel Barenboim, Riccardo Muti, Claudio Abbado, James Levine, Zubin Mehta and, in the younger generation, Christian Thielemann, Sir Simon Rattle, Riccardo Chailly, Antonio Pappano, but also new talents like Paavo Järvi, are enthusiastic about Waltraud Meier's musical personality, in which passion, creativity and incisive intellect come eloquently together.

At the Châtelet Opera in Paris the singer triumphed in Parsifal (Klaus-Michael Grüber/Semyon Bychkov) as she had previously in a 1991 production at La Scala under Riccardo Muti. Her close artistic collaboration with Maestro Barenboim and the Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden, as well as with the Bavarian State Opera in Munich has taken the singer on regular tours with those companies to Japan, where she has been seen and heard in Die Walküre, Wozzeck, Tristan und Isolde and Fidelio. The part of Ortrud in the new Lohengrin production at the Bavarian State Opera in 1998 followed in the same season Waltraud Meier's début as Leonore in Fidelio under the direction of Barenboim in Chicago. She has sung this role in subsequent seasons in new productions at the Bavarian State Opera directed by Peter Mussbach and conducted by Zubin Mehta, at the opening night of the 1999/2000 season at La Scala Milan with Werner Herzog as stage director and Riccardo Muti as conductor, as well as at the Metropolitan Opera in a production by Jürgen Flimm. Likewise in the year 2000, Waltraud Meier thrilled audiences at the Salzburg Festival with her new interpretation of Isolde in Klaus-Michael Grüber's Tristan production with Lorin Maazel on the podium. In 2001 at the opening of the Munich Opera Festival, the singer then made her brilliant début in the role of Didon in Hector Berlioz' Les Troyens with Zubin Mehta in the pit. Claudio Abbado's farewell tour with the Berlin Philharmonic in Italy featured the artist with her gripping interpretation of the Rückert-Lieder by Gustav Mahler.

Time and again, as singer and musician, Waltraud Meier has always sought challenge, ventured new paths and devoted herself to singing in its purest form at song recitals and concert appearances. This is why she decided to devote the 2003/2004 season exclusively to her activities as recitalist and concert singer. The highlights of this purely vocal season undoubtedly included Bach's St. Matthew Passion as well as a sophisticated recital program featuring compositions by Johannes Brahms, Franz Schubert and Hugo Wolf, which took Waltraud Meier throughout Europe and Russia as well as to the United States.

In the 2004/2005 season "opera singer" Waltraud Meier returned to the stage. Her most important projects included a new approach to the role of Carmen (before amongst others at the Met) in a new production at the Semper Oper in Dresden. In 2005 Waltraud Meier again proved her continued extraordinary status as Wagner singer in the role of Isolde in a spectacular new production of Tristan (stage director: Peter Sellars, conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen) at the Opéra de Bastille in Paris, as well as in a further interpretation of Kundry in the new Parsifal production at the Vienna State Opera.

The tremendously fruitful collaboration with Patrice Chéreau in Alban Berg's Wozzeck brought about the desire for further joint productions. At the opening of the 2007/2008 season Waltraud Meier will sing Isolde in the new Tristan production of Chéreau at La Scala in Milan under the musical direction of Daniel Barenboim.

For years Waltraud Meier had close links with the concerns and aims of the West Eastern Divan Youth Orchestra with whom she worked on many tours. In the 2008 season she will give, amongst others, an open air concert with this orchestra in the Berlin Waldbühne.

The great response to her deep involvement in the Liedgesang led Waltraud Meier to continuously extend her Lied repertoire and to present it to an international audience during extensive tours. Her interpretation of Vier letzte Lieder by Richard Strauss can be experienced on a new CD by Farao Classics.