Opera Singer. A mezzo-soprano of fairly wide repertoire, she was possibly best known for her Wagnerian portrayals. Raised in Canton, Ohio, the child of Swedish immigrants, she sang with her church choir and first attracted notice while vocalizing in a ship lounge during a 1938 trip with her parents. The ship's pianist arranged for her to study in New York, first with Giuseppe Boghetti then following his 1941 death with Edyth Walker, a Metropolitan Opera singer from the early 1900s; Blanche made her professional bow in a 1941 concert with the Philadelphia Orchestra, had her Metropolitan debut on November 28, 1944, in Philadelphia as Brangane in Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde", and followed with her house bow in New York on December 14th. of the same year as Fricka in Wagner's "Die Walkure". Over a 22-year Metropolitan Opera career she sang 356 times, attracting notice both for her voice and her hair which at one point reached six feet in length. Among her 28 roles were Ortrud in Wagner's "Lohengrin", the Verdi parts of Azucena in "Il Trovatore", Amneris in "Aida", and Princess Eboli in "Don Carlos", as well as the title 'heroines' of Bizet's "Carmen" and Saint-Saens' "Samson et Dalila". Blanche also appeared a few times on the silver screen, taking part in "Irish Eyes Are Smiling" (1944) and 1951's "The Great Caruso". In 1957 she became the first American to sing at Moscow's Bolshoi Opera when she performed "Carmen" several times over a three week run; it was reported that during the tour her mink coat would attract such notice as to stop traffic on the Russian streets. Blanche sang with the San Francisco Opera and the Royal Opera Covent Garden, frequently gave concerts with soprano Eleanor Steber, and made some recordings including recital discs and complete performances as Brangane of "Tristan und Isolde" and Dorabella in Mozart's "Cosi fan tutti". After her 1967 operatic retirement she appeared as the Mother Abbess in "The Sound of Music", ran an opera company in Atlanta for six years, then was a professor at the University of Arkansas before settling in San Francisco where she was a private voice teacher and director of the San Francisco State University opera workshop for many years while simultaneously serving as a Metropolitan Opera board member from 1970 until 2008. Married once, her union with Richard Metz ended in divorce; she died of pneumonia complicated by advanced age. Her birth year is often incorrectly given as 1918.