Clamma Dale

Clamma Dale is an American soprano who created Bess in Houston Grand Opera's landmark 1976 Porgy and Bess, opposite Donnie Ray Albert. Trained at the Settlement Music School and Juilliard, she taught first grade in Brooklyn before her 1973 Metropolitan Opera debut in Virgil Thomson's Four Saints in Three Acts. A 1975 Naumburg Competition win led to Porgy and Bess, whose Broadway transfer brought her a Tony nomination, the 1977 Drama Desk Award and, for its cast recording, a 1978 Grammy. She went on to sing at the Opéra du Rhin and the Opéra National de Paris in the early 1980s.