Laurence Dale

Laurence Dale (born 1957) is an English tenor, artistic director and conductor. Laurence Dale studied singing at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Rudolf Piernay and the Mozarteum in Salzburg.

Early leading roles included that of Hilarion in the Gilbert and Sullivan opera Princess Ida with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Ambrosian Opera Chorus in 1982, and Ramiro in Rossini's opera La Cenerentola with the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1983.

In 1984 he appeared in the Channel 4 series Top C's and Tiaras.

Amongst many Mozartian rôles, as well as baroque and romantic, his portrayal of Tamino, with which he opened Mozart year in Salzburg in 1991 was described by the press as legendary. He performed this rôle regularly in Vienna's Staatsoper and Berlin's Deutsche Oper, then in Paris Opera Bastille and throughout the world. In 1992, he created the Rodrigue in Rodrigue et Chimène to open the new opera in Lyon, recorded for Erato Records under the direction of Kent Nagano.

Following the performance of Claudio Monteverdi's Orfeo as celebrations for Herbert Wernicke's Monteverdi year production at the 1993 Salzburg Festival, he recorded the title rôle under the direction of René Jacobs for Harmonia Mundi.

He has recorded under the direction of Georges Prêtre, Gounod's Messe de Saint Cécile alongside Barbara Hendricks and Jean-Philippe Lafont, Mozart's C minor mass with Franz Welser-Möst, and the title rôles of Auber's Gustave III and Etienne Mehul's Joseph en Egypte.

Having created the rôle of Don José in Peter Brook's La Tragédie de Carmen in 1981 at the Bouffes du Nord in Paris, and played the rôle through three seasons, including New York, that Peter Brook turned him to re-direct the production for the Opera de Bordeaux and further performances on tour.

Immediately afterwards he directed Lehar's Der Zarewitsch for the Operette Festival, Bad Ischl and literally the next day, Haydn's L'Incontro improvviso for the Haydn Festival Eisenstadt and EXPO 2000, Hannover. These productions received praise from the Viennese press, which led to him being re-invited at Bad Ischl, in a co-production with Salzburg to mount Lehar's Das Land des Lächelns (designed by Hartmut Schörghofer).

In 2001, he conceived and prepared the New York Off Broadway Salsa musical (¡MUSICA!), which following the disaster of 11 September had to be abandoned. He directed the French première at Nantes of Thomas Adès's Powder Her Face, (conducted by John Burdekin). In 2002, he mounted two operas for New York Gotham Chamber Opera, Les Malheurs d'Orphée by Milhaud and Purcell's Dido and Aeneas (designed by Dipu Gupta and Fabio Toblini and conducted by Neal Goren). In 2003 a third Lehar's operetta was presented in Bad Ischl, The Count of Luxemburg, having originally opened in Innsbruck. He re-conceived the 1769 farcical opera L'Operia Seria (Gassmann) with the Dutch Reisopera, and made his own performing edition of Offenbach's Hoffmann's Tales. He mounted the double bill Poulenc's La Voix Humaine and Ravel's l'Heure Espagnole in 2011, as Rossini's La Pietra del Paragone for Opera Trionfo, or Die Fledermauss from Johann Strauss at the Norvegian National Opera in 2012.

As the Artistic Director of l'Opéra de Metz he staged Britten's Turn of the Screw, Thomas Adès Powder Her Face, and Lehar's Land of Smiles. For the opening of the season Les Jeux de Pouvoir, he mounted the twin productions of Auber's Gustave III (the modern stage première) and Verdi's Gustavo III the French première of the original version of Un Ballo in Maschera). He completed this unique season with Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots (starring Rockwell Blake as Raoul. In South Africa, as Artistic Consultant to Opera Africa in Gauteng, he directed Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi, and Verdi's Aida. He created Opera Extravaganza expressly to showcase new South Africa singers whom he formed, trained and caches.

He redirected his 2006 Opéra de Monte Carlo production of Richard Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos for l'Opéra Royal de Wallonie, Liège.

The 16 March 2008 Laurence Dale stood in for the indisposed conductor, entered the pit at the Civic Johannesburg and conducted the Johannesburg Philharmonic in the performance of Aida. Since then, he has received invitations to conduct concerts and operas and, after 10 years as Artistic Director of the Evian Festival Les Escales Musicales, has been additionally named Musical Director of the Festival. In June 2011 he welcomed to Evian the chorus and orchestra of the Opera National de Lorraine which he conducted in Gounod's Ste Cécila Mass and Elgar's The Music Makers (the French première). In 2009 he conducted the Sinfonia Varsovia and the Ensemble Vocal de Lausanne in a concert comprising Fauré's Requiem and works of Wagner and Rossini. For the 2010 season, he conducted the Philharmonie of the Nations.