Kristine Frances Ciesinski’s career encompassed more than three decades of performing many of the great operatic heroines. She was identified with roles such as Katerina in Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at La Scala, and the Paris Opera and Frankfurt Operas; the title role of Salome in eighteen productions including the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Semperoper in Dresden, English National Opera in London, Bellas Artes in Mexico City, Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, and the San Diego, Bremen, and Baltimore Operas; Marie in Wozzeck for Frankfurt, Bonn, Hamburg, London, Buenos Aires, Amsterdam, and at the Spoleto Festival in Italy; Lady Macbeth in Verdi’s Macbeth at the Festival de Vichy, London-ENO, and the English National Opera tour to Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater and the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg; Emilia Marty in Janacek’s Makropoulos Case at the Glyndebourne Festival, La Monnaie in Brussels, the Staatsoper in Hamburg, Maastricht, and the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam, as well as the heroines in Bluebeard’s Castle and Erwartung in Leipzig, Basel and Tokyo.  

She collaborated with Simon Rattle, Leonard Bernstein, Lorin Maazel, Mark Elder, Emmanuel Vuillaume, Donald Runnicles, Charles Mackerras, Peter Schneider, Lorin Maazel, Alexander Gibson, and Andrew Davis. Her stage and film performances include work with directors Werner Schroeter, Günter Krämer, Peter Stein, Martin Kusej, Peter Konwitschny, Peter Mussbach, Nicholas Muni, Krzysztof Zanussi, Christoph Marthaler, David Pountney, and Francesca Zambello.

She starred in several interesting film projects including Werner Schroeter’s prize winning Abfällprodukte der Liebe (alongside her sister Katherine), the BBC docudrama The Secret Life of Alban Berg (with her husband Norman) and Peter Mussbach’s production of Wozzeck from Frankfurt, released on the Kultur Video label. She also appeared in the documentary Cloudstreet: Soaring the American West.

For twelve years she served on the voice faculty at Ricks College/Brigham Young University - Idaho where she was recognized with the University Excellence in Teaching Award in 2010. For the academic year 2011-2012, she served on the voice faculty of Florida State University, where she was the recipient of a faculty enrichment grant. She was married to renowned British Wagnerian bass-baritone, Norman Bailey, CBE for thirty-three years.