TOKYO Soprano Hildegard Behrens, one of the finest Wagnerian performers of her generation, has died while traveling in Japan. She was 72.

Jonathan Friend, artistic administrator of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, said Tuesday in an e-mail to opera officials that Behrens felt unwell while traveling to a festival near Tokyo. She went to a Tokyo hospital, where she died of an apparent aneurism.

Friends e-mail was shared with The Associated Press by Jack Mastroianni, director of IMG Artists.

Her funeral was planned in Vienna.

Organizers for Behrens visit in Japan said she was in this country to teach lessons in the hot springs resort town of Kusatsu, north of Tokyo, Aug. 21-29. The lessons were being sponsored by the Kanshinetsu Music Association.

A Web site for the Kusatsu Summer Music Festival said Behrens performances had been canceled, but gave no further details. It said she was to perform Thursday.

Behrens was among the finest actors on the opera stage during a professional career that spanned more than three decades. She made her professional stage debut in Freiburg as the Countess in Mozarts Le Nozze di Figaro in 1971 and made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Giorgetta in Puccinis Il Tabarro in 1976.

One of her breakthrough roles came the following year, when she sang the title role in Strauss Salome at the Salzburg Festival in Austria.

She sang 171 performances at the Met, where she appeared until 1999. Her breakthrough there was as Leonore in Beethovens Fidelio under conductor Karl Boehm in 1980, and she was most acclaimed in the late 1980s and early 1990s for her portrayal of Bruennhilde in the Otto Schenk production of the Ring Cycle, the Mets first televised staging of Wagners tetralogy.

A dramatic soprano, her Met career include Elettra in Mozarts Idomeneo, Isolde in Wagners Tristan und Isolde, Senta in Die Fliegende Hollander, Donna Anna in Mozarts Don Giovanni, Santuzza in Mascagnis Cavalleria Rusticana, the title roles in Strauss Elektra and Salome, and Puccinis Tosca, and Marie in Bergs Wozzeck.