Stilwell, Richard (Dale)

Stilwell, Richard (Dale), outstanding American baritone; b. St. Louis, May 6, 1942. After studying English at Anderson (Ind.) Coll., he appeared as Silvio in Pagliacci with the St. Louis Grand Opera (1962); then studied voice with F. St. Leger and P. Mathen at the Ind. Univ. School of Music in Bloomington (B.A., 1966) and with D. Ferro in N.Y. On April 7, 1970, he made a successful debut as Pelléas with the N.Y.C. Opera, In 1973 he made his British debut as Ulysses in II ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria at the Glyndebourne Festival. He was chosen to create the role of Constantine in Pasatieri’s The Seagull (Houston, 1974) and the title role in Pasatieri’s Ines de Castro (Baltimore, 1976). On Oct. 15, 1976, he made his Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte; scored a major success there as Billy Budd in 1978; also appeared at the Paris Opéra, the Netherlands Opera, the Chicago Lyric Opera, the Washington (D.C.) Opera Soc, and the Berlin Deutsche Oper; likewise sang in concerts with the major U.S. orchs. In 1988 he sang in the premiere of Argento’s The Aspern Papers in Dallas. In 1990 he appeared as Sharp-less in Lyons. He sang Don Alfonso in Seattle in 1992. hi 1994 he was engaged to sing in Barber’s Vanessa in Dallas. He appeared in The Ballad of Baby Doe at the Washington (D.C.) Opera in 1997. In addition to his remarkable portrayal of Pelléas, he also excels as Papageno, Don Giovanni, Figaro in II Barbiere di Siviglia, Don Pasquale, Eugene Onegin, Rodrigo in Don Carlos, and Ford in Falstaff.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire