The Romanian soprano Ileana Cotrubas, who has died aged 87, was admired internationally, not least in Great Britain, where she lived at the start of her career, and Vienna, where she and her husband later made their home. What lent her lyric soprano voice, which may have lacked the voluptuousness and amplitude of other celebrated singers, its distinctive nature was its tightly focused tonal quality (occasionally criticised as plangent), combining inner strength with a touching vulnerability. She was also an excellent actor (her exemplar was Maria Callas), her stage portrayals tellingly incarnating the often wounded women she played.

Outstanding among these was her Violetta in La Traviata, which encompassed the character’s frailty, her zest for life, her exuberance and her inescapably tragic situation, in performances that were throbbing with passion and almost unbearably intense. The cumulative sweep of the phrases in her dazzling rendition of Sempre Libera, as captured in a celebrated Deutsche Grammophon recording with Carlos Kleiber, and the profoundly poignant Dite alla Giovine, in which she bids farewell to the past and to life, demonstrate perfectly the qualities for which Cotrubas is remembered.

It was with Debussy’s equally frail Mélisande that she made her Glyndebourne debut in Pelléas et Mélisande in 1969, returning the following year in the title role of La Calisto, as well as Pamina in The Magic Flute, and Mélisande once again. She appeared in subsequent years as Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro and Tytania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. From 1971, when she made her Covent Garden debut, she also became a regular there, undertaking roles such as Violetta, Adina (L’Elisir d’Amore), Norina (Don Pasquale), Amina (La Sonnambula), Gilda (Rigoletto) and Antonia (Tales of Hoffmann). Her casting, for her Royal Opera debut, as Tatyana in Peter Hall’s new production of Eugene Onegin, came, she later said, as a complete surprise to her. She assumed that Hall must have agreed with her assertion that a lyric soprano suited the role better than the usual spinto. The conductor (and music director), Georg Solti, however, had to be persuaded and auditioned her twice; she was then coached by Mark Elder, who was working at the time as a répétiteur at Covent Garden.

Also in 1971, during the second year of an initial residency at the Vienna State Opera, another breakthrough in her career occurred when she appeared (alongside Nicolai Gedda as Alfredo, under the baton of Josef Krips) as Violetta in a special Christmas Day performance of La Traviata. Despite her qualms about accepting the role, something of a departure for her, she proved a resounding success, and went on to become a company favourite (from 1981 Kammersängerin), undertaking 109 performances until her final one, as Mimì in La Bohème, in 1990.

Mimì also provided a memorable vehicle for her La Scala debut in 1975. The scheduled soprano, Mirella Freni, had fallen ill and Cotrubas, recommended by the Rodolfo, Luciano Pavarotti, was flown out from London, arriving at the last minute and going on with no rehearsal. She was received with vociferous enthusiasm by the Milanese audience.

Born in Galati in eastern Romania, Ileana was the daughter of Vasile Cotrubas, a civil servant in the ministry of agriculture; both he and Ileana’s mother, Maria, were keen amateur opera singers. She studied in Bucharest and made her debut there in 1964 as Yniold in Pelléas et Mélisande. In the audience on that occasion was the celebrated pedagogue Nadia Boulanger, who complimented her on her excellent French. That attribute was to stand her in good stead in a number of the key roles she was to undertake.

After further study in Vienna, she sang with the Frankfurt Opera (1968–71), also making several appearances at the Salzburg festival in those years. In addition to her Glyndebourne and Covent Garden performances of the 1970s she made her debut at the Paris Opéra as Manon in 1974. International acclaim followed in a repertory that was selective rather than extensive, centred on the lighter roles that exploited her particular talent to optimal effect, among them Mimì, in which she successfully deployed her acting skills to characterise the seamstress’s appealing nature and vulnerability.

Her substantial recorded legacy also includes Charpentier’s Louise, in which she limns the title role with subtle, delicate touches, while managing to hint at a certain artfulness; Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi, where she delivers her famous aria O Mio Babbino Caro as the piteous plea of the adored but dejected child she is; a charming but also vibrant Micaela in Carmen; a warm, intelligent Susanna; and a Léila (The Pearl Fishers) that demonstrates her superb artistry as well as, once again, her impeccable French diction.

Looking back at her career on her retirement, Cotrubas reflected how she had “flirted” with a handful of heavier roles such as Elisabetta di Valois (Don Carlos), Amelia (Simon Boccanegra) and Desdemona, which she admitted did not ideally suit her voice even if she “just managed it” on account of her acting skills. Strauss’s Four Last Songs, demanding at least a measure of vocal opulence, similarly failed to show her at her best. Her considerable strengths lay rather in her ability to shape phrases, to spin a legato line and above all to invest her characterisations with psychological acuity and compelling dramatic force.

An avowed traditionalist, she earned a reputation for speaking out against what she regarded as the excesses of directorial intervention. More than once she walked out of productions where she felt her insights were more authentic than those of the director (“I didn’t even need to transform myself into Tatyana, because I was Tatyana,” she said of her approach to the role). In fact she had no complaints about Hall in that regard: along with Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, Otto Schenk and John Schlesinger, he was among her most esteemed directorial colleagues.

Those who gave offence were named and shamed in two books she wrote in conjunction with her husband, Manfred Ramin, a German conductor and critic: the first an autobiography (1998) entitled Opernwahrheiten (Opera Truths), the second a polemic, Die Manipulierte Oper (The Manipulated Opera, 2017), which addressed the wider operatic scene – unprepared, time-beating conductors who were complicit with wilful directors were also excoriated – in heavily satirical style.

Ramin, whom she married in 1972, survives her.

• Ileana Cotrubas, soprano, born 9 June 1939; died 20 August 2026