Clamma Dale

Clamma Churita Dale, born in 1948 in Chester, Pennsylvania, is an American operatic soprano whose career has spanned Broadway, major opera houses, and concert halls across the United States and Europe. Her father was a jazz musician, and under his guidance she developed proficiency on multiple instruments during her youth, including clarinet, cello, saxophone, piano, and guitar, while also singing in her school choir. Dale pursued formal training at the Settlement Music School before enrolling at the Juilliard School, where she earned a bachelor's degree in music in 1970 and a master's degree in 1975. In the period between her two Juilliard degrees, she worked as a first-grade music teacher in Brooklyn.

Dale made her professional opera debut on February 20, 1973, performing the role of 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. The following year she portrayed Bess for the first time at the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera. In 1975 she signed a three-year contract with the New York City Opera and made her debut with that company in October of that year as Antonia in Jacques Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann. That same year she won the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation's music competition, which led directly to her New York City recital debut at Town Hall in May 1976. She subsequently returned to the New York City Opera on multiple occasions in the late 1970s, taking on roles including the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro and Nedda in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci.

The role that brought Dale widespread recognition was Bess in the Houston Grand Opera's 1976 production of Porgy and Bess. That production transferred to Broadway, where it ran at both the Uris Theatre and the Mark Hellinger Theatre in 1976 and 1977. For her performance, Dale received the 1977 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical and a Tony Award nomination. The cast recording of the production earned her a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording in 1978. Also in 1977, she performed as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic in the Washington, D.C. premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Songfest. On February 12, 1978, she appeared at the White House for a Gershwin evening alongside pianist Neil Stannard.

Dale's career continued to expand internationally through the 1980s. In 1980 she sang at a gala concert marking the 35th anniversary of the United Nations. That same year she performed the roles of Giulietta and Antonia in Les Contes d'Hoffmann for her debut at the Opéra national du Rhin, sang Nedda for her debut with the Opera Company of Philadelphia, and performed both the title role in Aida and Leonora in Il Trovatore at an opera house in Bogotá, Colombia. In 1983 she made her first appearance at the Opéra National de Paris as Fata Morgana in The Love for Three Oranges, after which she spent several years performing in Parisian opera houses in roles including Liu in Puccini's Turandot, Musetta in Puccini's La bohème, Pamina in The Magic Flute, and the title role in Erzsebet, an opera by Charles Chaynes. In 1986 she appeared at the Opéra de Nancy et de Lorraine, and 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 married Terry Shirk in 1981; he died suddenly of a heart attack in 1987. In 1991 she sang the world premiere of John Duffy's Time for Remembrance with the Honolulu Symphony as part of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Her recordings include the Houston Grand Opera's Porgy and Bess on RCA Victor, Virgil Thomson's Four Saints in Three Acts on Nonesuch, and Voice of Bernstein on Deutsche Grammophon.