Ruth Michaelis; Opera Performer

Ruth Michaelis, known in the United States for her productions and teaching of opera and in Europe for her performances of them, died Friday in her sleep at her Santa Barbara home.

The alto and mezzo-soprano was 85, said her companion of 45 years, Imogene Henderson.

Known primarily in West Germany, where she sang with the Munich Opera for nearly three decades, Miss Michaelis was once called a “model exponent of ensemble art” by Times music critic Martin Bernheimer.

She studied voice and dramatics in Berlin with Hans Beltz and then with Jeanne Robert and Anna Bahr-Mildenburg.

At Munich, where Miss Michaelis made her debut in 1933, she continued to sing into the 1960s even after moving to Istanbul to organize a new state opera school in Turkey’s largest city.

Born in Posen, Germany, she came to the United States in 1961 at the invitation of Lotte Lehman and taught Lehman’s master classes at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. The following year she joined the music faculty at USC.

She also staged productions for the Pasadena Opera and judged Metropolitan Opera and other auditions in the United States and Europe.

In 1954 she was named a Kammer s angerin by the German government, an honorary title reserved for only the finest artists, Henderson said.