Dame Margaret Berenice PriceDBE (13 April 1941 – 28 January 2011[1]) was aWelshsoprano.
Price was born inBlackwood, nearCaerphilly in South Wales. Born with deformed legs, she underwent surgery at age four and suffered pain in her legs for the rest of her life. She often looked after her younger brother John, who was born with a mental handicap.[2] The family had ties inCardigan and northPembrokeshire and often spent their summer holiday inMoylgrove.[3]
Her father, a talented amateur pianist, was opposed to a musical career, and hence she never attended aneisteddfod and was aiming for a career as a biology teacher. She was educated atPontllanfraith Secondary School, near Caerphilly. When she was 15, her school music teacher organised an audition withCharles Kennedy Scott, who persuaded her to study with him atTrinity College of Music in London and obtained a scholarship for her. Over the next few years Price trained as amezzo-soprano.[2][4]
After graduation, she joined theAmbrosian Singers, performing with them on the soundtrack of the 1961Charlton Heston filmEl Cid.[2] She remained only briefly with that ensemble and later admitted to having struggled somewhat during her time with that group due to her inadequate skills at sight-singing.[5]
Unrecognised through the normal channel of competitions, she was championed by her now-converted father, who wrote to opera houses to arrange auditions. As a result, Price made her operatic debut in 1962, singing Cherubino inMozart'sThe Marriage of Figaro at theWelsh National Opera.[2]
After her father wrote to theRoyal Opera House inCovent Garden in 1962, she auditioned and was turned down twice by musical directorGeorg Solti who said that she "lacked charm".[2] However, she was accepted as an understudy, thanks to casting directorJoan Ingpen, and she formed of a close personal and professional relationship with pianist and conductorJames Lockhart. Solti added a rider to her contract, stating that she should never expect to sing lead in the main house, so she sang minor roles as amezzo.[2] Her breakthrough came in 1963 whenTeresa Berganza cancelled a performance and Price got the chance to take over as her nominatedunderstudy, again in the role of Cherubino, a performance that made her famous overnight.[4]
After that, Lockhart convinced Price to take further singing lessons to improve her technique and develop the luminous high range that made her one of the most popular lyricsopranos of the 1970s and 1980s.[6]
In 1967, she performed withBenjamin Britten'sEnglish Opera Group inMozart'sThe Impresario, and as Titania in Britten'sA Midsummer Night's Dream. In 1968, criticDesmond Shawe-Taylor called her singing "brilliant, flexible and large scale" as Constanze in Mozart'sDie Entführung aus dem Serail atGlyndebourne.[2]
As Price did not enjoy travelling, she always kept a "home" stage, where she stayed and performed for the majority of each year. Initially this was Covent Garden, but from 1971 she made Germany her base, initially atCologne Opera where she made her debut inDon Giovanni, and latterly theBavarian State Opera in Munich, where she lived until retirement in 1999.[4] Price hence formed a professional relationship withOtto Klemperer, who conducted her first recording of a major role in a complete opera – Fiordiligi in Mozart'sCosì fan tutte. The 1972 recording established Price as a Mozart specialist.[7]
In the years that followed, Price appeared as a guest at important opera houses. HerMetropolitan Opera debut came in 1985 as Desdemona inVerdi'sOtello. In 1989 she appeared in the WNO production ofSalome at theBrooklyn Academy of Music in New York, in a performance attended by thePrince andPrincess of Wales.[8]
Price was most famous for her Mozart roles, especially Fiordiligi, Donna Anna inDon Giovanni, the Countess inThe Marriage of Figaro (after having sung Cherubino and Barbarina at the beginning of her career), and Pamina inThe Magic Flute. Additionally, she sang Verdi roles, such as Amelia (Un ballo in maschera, a role she also recorded withLuciano Pavarotti), Élisabeth (Don Carlos) and Desdemona (Otello), her debut role at the Met, as well as the title role inAida (also with Pavarotti in San Francisco, which was preserved on video),Richard Strauss's Ariadne (Ariadne auf Naxos) andAdriana Lecouvreur byCilea. Price was also very active as alieder singer, equally at home in the romantic idiom ofFranz Schubert andRobert Schumann or Richard Strauss and theSecond Viennese School.[citation needed]
During her career, Price made many recordings of operas and of lieder. One of her most famous recordings is as Isolde inCarlos Kleiber's complete recording ofRichard Wagner'sTristan und Isolde, a role she never sang on stage. She was aKammersängerin of theBavarian State Opera.
Price retired to a 160-year-old farmhouse onCeibwr Bay, part of Moylegrove nearCardigan, Ceredigion, overlookingCardigan Bay. From there, she successfully bred and showedGolden Retrievers, having the rear seats of herChrysler removed to create what she termed a "dogmobile."[2] She came out of retirement once to perform at aRemembrance Day concert at her local church, something she later commented on: “It was the most nerve-racking occasion of my life. Never again will I sing in public.”[2]
Price died on 28 January 2011 from heart failure at her home in Ceibwr, near Cardigan, aged 69.[2][3][4]
