in his Die Walküre. In the same year she performed at the Edinburgh Festival in the Hamburg State Opera's production of Beethoven's Fidelio, as Leonore, with Lisa della Casa as Marzelline. The music critic of The Times wrote, "Mme. Inge Borkh is splendid: in figure and dress she has more verisimilitude than most sopranos can command … she sings with freedom and ardour; she is Beethoven's idea incarnate". After this Borkh performed at major opera houses in Europe, in Hamburg, Stuttgart, Barcelona, Lisbon, London, Milan and Naples, among others. She made her U.S. debut with the San Francisco Opera on 25 September 1953 in the title role of Elektra by Richard Strauss at the War Memorial Opera House, conducted by Georg Solti, who was also making his American debut. Her association with San Francisco gave her particular pleasure: "I sang almost everything there that I could do. Even Lady Macbeth and Turandot. I wasn't typecast, as I was in other places. Here I even committed the crime of portraying the gentle Elsa in Lohengrin. I went home with my husband afterwards and wept. It was grisly. It was awful. I sang terribly. Yet a critic wrote that it was fabulous, that a new Flagstad had been found. I never attempted that again." In 1954, Borkh appeared in Rio de Janeiro; in the same year she performed at the Florence Maggio Musicale as Eglantine in Weber's Euryanthe, conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini, and in 1955 at the Salzburg Festival, as Cathleen in the premiere of Egk's Irische Legende. She was Elektra there in 1957, conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos, and appeared as Klytaemnestra in Gluck's Iphigenie in Aulis in 1962 and 1963. In 1956 she played the role of Queen Elizabeth in the American premiere of Britten's Gloriana, conducted by Josef Krips, who along with Fritz Reiner was one of her favourite conductors. Borkh's debut at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, was in 1958. It would have been earlier, but the manager of the house, Rudolf Bing, wanted her to play the title role in Salome, which she repeatedly declined to do. She felt as though in that house the role belonged to her contemporary, Ljuba Welitsch. Borkh finally accepted Bing's invitation, and played Salome, with Mitropoulos conducting. In the same season she played Sieglinde, and in 1971 she alternated with Christa Ludwig as the Dyer's Wife in Die Frau ohne Schatten.