Pollak was born in
Manchester to an Austrian father and Russian mother and spent part of her childhood in the Netherlands. After finishing her education in Manchester, she began working as a stage actress and as a singer in musical comedy, pantomime, and revues. During World War II she worked for
ARP, the British civil defense organisation, and entertained British troops at
ENSA concerts. After the war, she auditioned for the newly re-opened Sadlers Wells Opera. She had no formal musical training, let alone training in opera, apart from encouragement and advice from the conductor
Lawrance Collingwood and the soprano
Joan Cross who was the manager of Sadlers Wells. Pollak made her debut as an opera singer in 1945 singing Dorabella in the Sadlers Wells production of
Così fan tutte and remained as a leading member of the company until 1962 while also appearing with the English Opera Group as well as at
Glyndebourne and the
Royal Opera House. She returned to Sadlers Wells as a guest artist in 1966 when she gave what critic
Elizabeth Forbes called "a hallucinatory performance" as the old Countess in
The Queen of Spades and again in 1968 as Calliope in the Sadler's Wells production of
Orpheus in the Underworld (her final performance of the opera stage). Pollak died in
Hythe, Kent at the age of 84. Her lifelong companion, , had died in 1969. ==References==