Award in 1994, an award which also helped further the careers of Sylvia McNair (1990), Denyce Graves (1991), and Nathan Gunn (1996), that she drew wider attention in the opera world. In 1994 Racette was offered a contract by the Metropolitan Opera to perform the role of Musetta in La bohème for performance in the spring of 1995. She made her debut at the house on March 4, 1995, with Mary Mills as Mimì, Luis Lima as Rodolfo, as Marcello, and John Fiore conducting. Her performance was so well received she was immediately engaged to sing the role of Mimì in subsequent seasons, and has remained an annual performer at the Met since her debut. Her popularity at the house grew rapidly, and she began to add more roles to her Met repertoire in the late 1990s, including Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes, Antonia/Stella in Les contes d'Hoffmann, and Violetta in La traviata. She took over the latter part in 1998 after the firing of Angela Gheorghiu and the cancellation of Renée Fleming. In the 2000s she has added the roles Alice Ford in Falstaff, Blanche de la Force in Dialogues of the Carmelites, Elizabeth of Valois in Don Carlos, and Nedda in Pagliacci to her Met repertoire. In 2005 she notably portrayed Roberta Alden in the world premiere of Tobias Picker's An American Tragedy. She most recently sang the role of Cio-Cio San at the house in 2012. In 1996 Racette had a major critical success portraying the title role in the world premiere of Tobias Picker's Emmeline for her debut at the Santa Fe Opera. She has since returned to that house frequently, portraying Violetta (1997), Blanche de la Force (1999), Tatyana in Eugene Onegin (2002), the title role in Káťa Kabanová (2003), Amelia Grimaldi in Simon Boccanegra (2004), and Liù in Turandot (2005). She most recently returned to the house to portray the role of Leslie Crosby in the premiere of Paul Moravec's The Letter in 2009. In 1998 Racette was the recipient of the coveted Richard Tucker Award, which is given annually by the Richard Tucker Music Foundation to an American-born opera singer on the threshold of a major national and international career. Some prior recipients of this award have been Renée Fleming (1990), Deborah Voigt (1992), Ruth Ann Swenson (1993), Dwayne Croft (1996), and David Daniels (1997). Racette continued to maintain an active relationship with