1 week Ago By The Telegraph
Margaret Gale, the soprano, who has died aged 93, spent a dozen years with Sadler’s Wells Opera, making her debut in the 1961-62 season as a captivating Musetta in Puccini’s La Bohème; she sang under the batons of Charles Mackerras, Colin Davis, John Matheson and others, and was at her best playing a quicksilver and assured Adele in Strauss’s Die Fledermaus and as a fresh-spirited Susanna in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, with the critic Gerald Larner describing her as the “life of the production”. While her voice may have lacked weight in heavier roles, Margaret Gale had the essential ability to make the music sing. From a dramatic point of view, she had just the vivacious personality and nimble vocal technique to portray the heroine’s sense of fun, notably as Norina in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale.
“Her lively but controlled performance fits in admirably with the well-disciplined style of the rest of the cast,” another critic observed. Margaret Winifred Gale, known as Maggie, was born in Sheffield on September 10 1931, the second of three daughters of Winifred, née Walker, and Arthur Gale, who had a successful business in the cutlery trade. She first sang in public at the age of four, and by her teens, while employed as a National Coal Board clerk, had leading roles in musicals such as in Oklahoma!, Carousel and Song of Norway.
She also sang Oscar in Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, Abigaille in the same composer’s Nabucco and the title role in Harry Graham’s adaptation of Victoria and Her Hussar. At the age of 19 she joined her fellow Sheffielder Peter Glossop training for a professional career with Eva Rich, then the best-known singing teacher in the North of England. Moving to London, she was in the Glyndebourne Chorus.
While there she was offered a contract at Sadler’s Wells by the company’s director, Norman Tucker. Over the next three years Margaret Gale was a seductive Esmeralda in Smetana’s The Bartered Bride, sang both the fairy Celia and the shepherdess Phyllis in Gilbert & Sullivan’s Iolanthe, and exuded joie de vivre as the headstrong teenager Milly in Malcolm Williamson’s Our Man in Havana. A bustling Despina in Mozart’s Così fan tutte set her on the road to other maids, including an appealing Zerlina in Don Giovanni.
Then came a slyly humorous Clorinda, one of the ugly sisters in Rossini’s La Cenerentola, with a Daily Telegraph critic noting that she “both sang and acted decoratively”. Maggie Gale gained a reputation for being a reliable last-minute cover. In 1964 she sang one of the two twittery nieces in Britten’s Peter Grimes at three hours’ notice, and during a single spring day in 1968 she learnt the nymph Naiad in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos.
Her world premieres included Natalia in John Joubert’s adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s novel Under Western Eyes in 1969 – “sweet and clear of voice”, noted one critic – and the coloratura soprano in Wilfrid Mellers’s folk-inspired Yeibichai at the Proms that year. Despite being held in high esteem, Margaret Gale left no commercial recordings. After leaving Sadler’s Wells in 1973 she embarked on freelance concert work, appearing on stage into the 1990s, and for two years taught singing at Roehampton College.
She also began a new career as a recruitment consultant, founding her own company Gale Associates, eventually retiring in 2004. She married the Mansfield Town footballer Jim Stainton in 1953 and the Canadian bass Don Garrard in 1967; both marriages were dissolved. There were no children.
Margaret Gale, born September 10 1931, died February 25 2025.
