28-04-2025
Margaret Gale obituary: soprano with Sadler's Wells
During a 12-year career on the professional stage, mostly spent with Sadler's Wells Opera, Margaret Gale acquired a well-deserved reputation for being able to deputise at short notice for her fellow singers. In 1963 she sang one of the two nieces in Britten's Peter Grimes at three hours' notice; five years later she learnt the part of the nymph Naiad in Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos in a single day to replace Rhonda Bruce; and in March 1969 she was whisked in at short notice to replace an ailing Jenifer Eddy in Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus, with Gramophone magazine praising her performance as 'warm and charming without resorting to coyness'.
Gale took part in a number of world premieres, including in 1963 The Knife
