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The mezzo-soprano Meriel Dickinson, who has died aged 86, was recognised internationally for both her classical and contemporary vocal repertoire. In operas, oratorios and premieres of new works, she performed with some of the greatest composers of the last century – Benjamin Britten, Pierre Boulez, John Cage and Aaron Copland – as well as leading conductors such as Adrian Boult and Simon Rattle.
Highlights of her career included Beethoven’s Choral Symphony at the 1969 Vienna festival under George Szell. She recalled: “I was understandably nervous of Szell. His somewhat autocratic manner had been known to subdue the London Symphony Orchestra. However, in the end he was very charming, complimenting me on my voice and German pronunciation.”
In the 1960s Dickinson began a longstanding partnership with her brother, Peter, the composer, pianist and author, performing in recitals, BBC broadcasts and recordings. They particularly excelled in contemporary and experimental music, championing composers such as Erik Satie, George Gershwin and Charles Ives, and commissioning Lennox Berkeley and Andrzej Panufnik, among others. Peter’s compositions combined different genres and sounds, from the experimental to ragtime, and he wrote several works for his sister, including song cycles to poems of EE Cummings, a reflection of their shared literary passions.
Meriel’s other premieres included Gordon Crosse’s Memories of Morning: Night, a BBC commission composed for her and performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Colin Davis at the BBC Proms in 1973. Her opera and musical theatre appearances ranged from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin with Welsh National Opera (1980) to Stephen Sondheim’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the Theatre Royal, York (1982).
From the mid-70s she became a key figure in the Kurt Weill revival, acclaimed for her interpretations of roles in Mahagonny Songspiel and Happy End in Berlin in 1975. Both works were recorded by Deutsche Grammophon with the London Sinfonietta conducted by David Atherton, who regarded her rendition of Weill’s music as “second to none”. In 1989, she was cast as Emma Jones in Weill’s Street Scene for productions staged by Scottish Opera and English National Opera. Dickinson later recalled: “I enjoyed playing the vituperative Mrs Jones, but had some problems with my dog – the only time I have worked with an animal … The dog walked to the front of the stage and relieved herself. The audience … roared their approval.”
She was born in Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, into a musical family. Her father, Frank Dickinson, was an optometrist and a pioneer in the use of contact lenses who also had a passion for music, and her mother, Muriel (nee Porter), was a dramatic recitalist who specialised in poetry performances.
In 1958 she entered the Royal Manchester College of Music (now the Royal Northern College of Music). On graduating in 1963, she saw a vacancy advertised for the BBC Singers, and joined them in time for their Proms concert.
A soprano sitting next to her, Valerie Heath Davies, became her mentor: “[Valerie] advised me to consider leaving the Singers, on the grounds that I was using only a fraction of my vocal ability, and to study in Vienna with her teacher, Hans Karg. I remember trying to explain to my anxious father my reasons for abandoning what looked like a job for life to chance my luck in a wider context. I was only 23 and full of optimism.” On a scholarship, Dickinson moved to Vienna and trained at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts with Karg, receiving a distinction in the recital diploma.
In 1967, she toured Germany with Peter Pears, the tenor and Britten’s life partner, and the Schütz Choir, conducted by Roger Norrington. She also sang in Schumann’s Scenes from Faust conducted by Britten, of whom she wrote: “He was a perfectionist and, not working full time as a conductor, he would seem nervous and rather irritable if things did not go according to plan. The results were always superb, whether he was playing or conducting.”
In 1964, aged 24, she made her London solo debut with the Park Lane Group. Her rendition of songs by Hugo Wolf, John McCabe and Britten prompted Andrew Porter in the Financial Times to note that it was “a performance that one would have liked to take away on record”.
She met her future husband, Robert Gardner, when, in 1979, she joined the Old Vic Theatre Company for a double bill of plays with music celebrating the bicentenary of David Garrick. Gardner was the wig master. They married in 1991.
In 1997, she retired from performing but continued to teach, at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Her friend the former BBC music producer Jill White described Dickinson as “warm-hearted and extremely kind, with a wicked sense of humour”, likening her voice to “a lovely dark and lush velvet”.
Peter died in 2023, and Meriel is survived by her husband.
