Mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill made a splash early in her career with a debut in Wagner's Die Götterdämmerung at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. She has gone on to an international career in German, French, and Italian opera, as well as in concert music.

Cargill was born in Arbroath, on Scotland's east coast, in 1975. Her family had no involvement with classical music (her father was a plumber, her mother a bank employee), but her father enjoyed singing Beatles songs, and when Cargill sang along, a relative identified her vocal talent and suggested voice lessons. In those lessons, Cargill learned to read music and had her first exposure to opera. She went on to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, where she still felt unsure of her talents, but during a study-abroad year at the University of Toronto, Cargill's classmates were impressed by her voice, and she committed herself to an operatic career. She appeared in several productions as a student and shared the 2002 Kathleen Ferrier Award with bass-baritone Jonathan Lemalu. In 2007, Cargill made her debut as Rosina in a Scottish Opera production of Rossini's The Barber of Seville. In 2012, she made her first recording, Berlioz's song cycle Les Nuits d'été, with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra on the Linn label. The following year, she scored a major career breakthrough when she appeared to good reviews as Waltraute in Wagner's Die Götterdämmerung at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Cargill has gone on to impressive careers in both opera and concert music, appearing around North America and Europe (and beyond) with such groups as the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Berlin Philharmonic. She has sung Waltraute with the Royal Opera and the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and she returned to the Met to appear in Berlioz's Les Troyens. Cargill has also appeared at the English National Opera, the Scottish Opera, and the Edinburgh International Festival. She has recorded several albums for the Linn label, including Alma Gustav Mahler: Lieder (2014). Among her recording credits is a live 2015 performance of Berlioz's La morte de Cléopâtre with the London Symphony under conductor Valery Gergiev. In 2021, she returned on Linn with the French song recital Fleur de mon âme with pianist Simon Lepper. ~ James Manheim, Rovi