Clamma Dale
Encyclopedia
Clamma Dale is an African-American opera
tic soprano
. She is best known for portraying the role of Bess in the highly successful 1976 Houston Grand Opera
production of Porgy and Bess
. The show was transferred from Houston to Broadway
where Dale was awarded a Drama Desk Award
and received a Tony Award
nomination.
, Dale's father was a jazz musician and it is from him that she received much of her early musical training. She played the clarinet, cello, saxophone, piano, and guitar during her youth in addition to singing in choirs at school. She studied music at Philadelphia's Settlement Music School and then pursued voice studies at the Juilliard School
in New York City where her teachers included Hans Heinz, Alice Howland, and Cornelius Reid. After graduating from school she worked as a first grade music teacher in Brooklyn until her singing career began to take off.
Dale made her professional opera debut on February 20, 1973 as St. Teresa I in Virgil Thomson
's Four Saints in Three Acts
at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in a production mounted by the Metropolitan Opera
. In 1974 she portrayed Bess for the first time at the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera
. In 1975 she won the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation's music competition which led to her New York City recital debut at Town Hall
in May 1976. She made her debut with the New York City Opera
(NYCO) in October 1975 as Antonia in Jacques Offenbach
's Les Contes d'Hoffmann
. She returned to the NYCO several times in the late 1970s to portray such roles as the Countess in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro
and Nedda in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci
.
Dale first drew wide acclaim in 1976 for her portrayal of Bess at the Houston Grand Opera; a production which went on to a highly successful run at first the Uris Theatre and then the Mark Hellinger Theatre
on Broadway in 1976-1977. In 1977 she performed as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic
in the premiere of Leonard Bernstein
's Songfest in Washington D.C. In 1980 she sang in a gala concert celebrating the 35th anniversary of the United Nations. That same year she sang Giulietta and Antonia in Les Contes d'Hoffmann for her debut at the Opéra national du Rhin
, Nedda for her debut with the Opera Company of Philadelphia
, and both the title role in Aida
and Leonora in Il Trovatore
at the opera house in Bogota.
In 1983 Dale made her first appearance at the Opéra National de Paris as Fata Morgana in The Love for Three Oranges. She spent the next several years working in various opera houses in Paris, singing roles like Liu in Puccini's Turandot
, Musetta in Puccini's La bohème
, Pamina in The Magic Flute
, and the one-woman tour de force of the bloodthirsty title character in Erzsebet, an opera by Charles Chaynes. In 1986 she appeared at the Opéra national de Lorraine
. In 1988 she sang Bess for her debut at the Theater des Westens in Berlin. The following year she portrayed Liu at the Deutsche Oper Berlin
.
Dale has also given many recitals throughout her career including two recitals resulting from winning the Walter W. Naumburg voice competition. She has given recitals at Alice Tully Hall
and Carnegie Hall
among other places. She has also made several appearances at the White House
. In 1991 she sang the world premiere of John Duffy
's Time for Remembrance with the Honolulu Symphony
for the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor
.
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
. She is best known for portraying the role of Bess in the highly successful 1976 Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...
production of Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...
. The show was transferred from Houston to Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
where Dale was awarded a Drama Desk Award
Drama Desk Award
The Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category...
and received a Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
nomination.
Biography
Born and raised in Chester, PennsylvaniaChester, Pennsylvania
Chester is a city in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States, with a population of 33,972 at the 2010 census. Chester is situated on the Delaware River, between the cities of Philadelphia and Wilmington, Delaware.- History :...
, Dale's father was a jazz musician and it is from him that she received much of her early musical training. She played the clarinet, cello, saxophone, piano, and guitar during her youth in addition to singing in choirs at school. She studied music at Philadelphia's Settlement Music School and then pursued voice studies at the Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...
in New York City where her teachers included Hans Heinz, Alice Howland, and Cornelius Reid. After graduating from school she worked as a first grade music teacher in Brooklyn until her singing career began to take off.
Dale made her professional opera debut on February 20, 1973 as St. Teresa I in Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music...
's Four Saints in Three Acts
Four Saints in Three Acts
Four Saints in Three Acts is an opera by American composer Virgil Thomson with a libretto by Gertrude Stein. Written in 1927-8, it contains about 20 saints, and is in at least four acts...
at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in a production mounted by the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
. In 1974 she portrayed Bess for the first time at the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera
Los Angeles Civic Light Opera
The Los Angeles Civic Light Opera was an American theatre/opera company in Los Angeles, California. Founded under the motto "Light Opera in the Grand Opera manner" in 1938 by impresario Edwin Lester, the organization presented fifty seasons of theatre before closing due to financial reasons in...
. In 1975 she won the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation's music competition which led to her New York City recital debut at Town Hall
The Town Hall
The Town Hall is a performance space, located at 123 West 43rd Street, between Sixth Avenue and Broadway, in New York City. It seats approximately 1,500 people.-History:...
in May 1976. She made her debut with the New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
(NYCO) in October 1975 as Antonia in Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
's Les Contes d'Hoffmann
Les contes d'Hoffmann
Les contes d'Hoffmann is an opéra by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was written by Jules Barbier, based on short stories by E. T. A...
. She returned to the NYCO several times in the late 1970s to portray such roles as the Countess in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
and Nedda in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci
Pagliacci
Pagliacci , sometimes incorrectly rendered with a definite article as I Pagliacci, is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written and composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It recounts the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe...
.
Dale first drew wide acclaim in 1976 for her portrayal of Bess at the Houston Grand Opera; a production which went on to a highly successful run at first the Uris Theatre and then the Mark Hellinger Theatre
Mark Hellinger Theatre
The Mark Hellinger Theatre is a generally used name of a former legitimate Broadway theater, located at 237 West 51st Street in midtown Manhattan, New York City. Since 1991, it has been known as the Times Square Church...
on Broadway in 1976-1977. In 1977 she performed as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
in the premiere of Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
's Songfest in Washington D.C. In 1980 she sang in a gala concert celebrating the 35th anniversary of the United Nations. That same year she sang Giulietta and Antonia in Les Contes d'Hoffmann for her debut at the Opéra national du Rhin
Opéra national du Rhin
LOpéra national du Rhin is an opera company which performs in Alsace, eastern France, and which includes the Opéra in Strasbourg, the company's ballet in Mulhouse , and the "Opéra Studio" , a training centre for young singers, in Colmar...
, Nedda for her debut with the Opera Company of Philadelphia
Opera Company of Philadelphia
The Opera Company of Philadelphia is an American opera company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is the city's only company producing grand opera. The organization produces four fully staged opera productions annually, encompassing works from the seventeenth through the 21st century...
, and both the title role in Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
and Leonora in Il Trovatore
Il trovatore
Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. Cammarano died in mid-1852 before completing the libretto...
at the opera house in Bogota.
In 1983 Dale made her first appearance at the Opéra National de Paris as Fata Morgana in The Love for Three Oranges. She spent the next several years working in various opera houses in Paris, singing roles like Liu in Puccini's Turandot
Turandot
Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.Though Puccini's first interest in the subject was based on his reading of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot...
, Musetta in Puccini's La bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
, Pamina in The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
, and the one-woman tour de force of the bloodthirsty title character in Erzsebet, an opera by Charles Chaynes. In 1986 she appeared at the Opéra national de Lorraine
Opéra national de Lorraine
Opéra national de Lorraine is an opera company and opera house located in the city of Nancy in the French province of Lorraine. Formerly named the Opéra de Nancy et de Lorraine, it was given the status of "national opera" in 2006....
. In 1988 she sang Bess for her debut at the Theater des Westens in Berlin. The following year she portrayed Liu at the Deutsche Oper Berlin
Deutsche Oper Berlin
The Deutsche Oper Berlin is an opera company located in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin, Germany. The resident building is also home to the Berlin State Ballet.-History:...
.
Dale has also given many recitals throughout her career including two recitals resulting from winning the Walter W. Naumburg voice competition. She has given recitals at Alice Tully Hall
Alice Tully Hall
Alice Tully Hall is a concert hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. It is named for Alice Tully, a New York performer and philanthropist whose donations assisted in the construction of the hall...
and Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
among other places. She has also made several appearances at the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
. In 1991 she sang the world premiere of John Duffy
John Duffy
John Duffy is the name of:* John A. Duffy , American bishop* John Duffy , American soccer player* John Duffy and David Mulcahy , the Railway Rapists, British rapists and murderers...
's Time for Remembrance with the Honolulu Symphony
Honolulu Symphony
The Honolulu Symphony, also known as the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra, was founded in 1900. The Honolulu Symphony is the oldest symphony orchestra in the USA west of the Rocky Mountains. Originally housed in a clubhouse on the slopes of Punchbowl, the Honolulu Symphony now plays from the Neal S...
for the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
.
Recordings
- Porgy and BessPorgy and BessPorgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...
with the Houston Grand OperaHouston Grand OperaHouston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...
, 1990 RCA Victor. - Virgil ThomsonVirgil ThomsonVirgil Thomson was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music...
's Four Saints in Three ActsFour Saints in Three ActsFour Saints in Three Acts is an opera by American composer Virgil Thomson with a libretto by Gertrude Stein. Written in 1927-8, it contains about 20 saints, and is in at least four acts...
, 1992 Nonesuch. - Voice Of Bernstein, 2005 Deutsche Grammophon.