Price, Dame Margaret (Berenice)

Price, Dame Margaret (Berenice) , outstanding Welsh soprano; b. Blackwood, near Tredegar, South Wales, April 13, 1941. She commenced singing lessons when she was 9; then won the Charles Kennedy Scott scholarship of London’s Trinity Coll. of Music at 15, and studied voice with Scott for 4 years. After singing in the Ambrosian Singers for 2 seasons, she made her operatic debut as Cherubino with the Welsh National Opera (1962); then sang that same role at her Covent Garden debut in London (1963). She made her first appearance at the Glyndebourne Festival as Constanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1968); then made her U.S. debut as Pamina at the San Francisco Opera (1969); subsequently sang Fiordiligi at the Chicago Lyric Opera (1972). In 1973 she sang at the Paris Opéra, later joining its cast during its U.S. tour in 1976, eliciting extraordinary praise from the public and critics for her portrayal of Desdemona; made an auspicious Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. in that same role on Jan. 21, 1985. In 1987 she was engaged as Norma at Covent Garden. After appearing as Adriana Lecouvreur in Bonn in 1989, she sang Amelia Grimaldi in a concert performance of Simon Boccanegra at the Royal Festival Hall in London in 1990. During the 1993–94 season, she sang in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Berlin State Opera. She also toured widely as a concert singer. Her other notable roles include Donna Anna, Aida, Adriana Lecouvreur, and Strauss’s Ariadne. Price’s voice is essentially a lyric soprano, but is capable of technically brilliant coloratura. She was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1982. In 1992 she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire