Lesley Garrett: Fun, Sexy Opera

Entering the ‘experienced’ category as a journalist means that you occasionally get to meet celebrities and artists for a second time around.

It’s a situation I found myself in when I took the chance to catch up with Britain’s long-time favourite soprano, Lesley Garrett. Lesley is preparing to return to Fairfield Halls in Croydon, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, just as she was 14 years ago, when she featured with the same orchestra in February 1998, in a Valentine’s Special.

When I met Lesley then, I was enthralled by a straight-talking, feisty, young Yorkshire lass who, it appeared, had taken it upon herself to personally drag stuffy old opera, kicking and screaming into the homes and the hearts of mainstream Britain. She was – and still is – on a mission to make opera both sexy and fun. She described herself as ‘a woman with no frontiers’ - the lady who brought passion and joy to ‘whatever piece of music was next out of the family piano stool’ – whether it be Puccini, Mozart, Gershwin, Kurt Weill or Lou Reed!

So, 14 years is a long time in a career. Has her mission been successful? ‘We’ve made enormous progress since then,’ she confirms. Opera has been becoming ever and ever more popular. I used to say that it was time some of us in the opera world woke up and smelled the coffee and now I think we have. I love singing to packed houses, as I have done with Opera North, English National Opera, Welsh National Opera and Glyndebourne. I love giving my gala concerts, which feature favourite arias from the classic operas, alongside great songs from the shows and film music. I hate being pigeon-holed; film music, after all, is still music composed to support drama, in the same way that an opera score is.’

But there’s no suggestion of a lifetime of musical cherry picking here. Lesley has featured in a string of acclaimed productions with the major opera companies, over the years, giving definitive interpretations of some of the leading roles she sang. Her acclaimed Rosina, in English National Opera’s productions of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and her Royal Opera debut in The Merry Widow are just two that illustrate the
point. Just recently she re-joined the cast of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s production of The Sound of Music at the New Wimbledon Theatre. She described it as ‘bookending’ the show, as she had featured in it when it opened in the West End, five years ago. ‘I had my best time, ever, when I re-joined the show at Wimbledon,’ she says. ‘We had packed houses and it was even more enjoyable than when we opened, at the London Palladium.’

On Millennium Eve Lesley was singing pop and opera classics with artists as diverse as Bryan Ferry, The Eurythmics and Mick Hucknall, in the grounds of the Royal Observatory, in Greenwich and many who heard the groundbreaking crossover version of Lou Reed’s classic Perfect Day (recorded by the BBC for Children in Need) will remember it for Lesley’s single line contribution alone. She’s no stranger to the recording studio, having 13 solo albums to her credit, a figure that’s going to increase around Easter 2012, when her latest project hits the shops.

‘For the first time I’ve decided to use folk music as my starting point for an album,’ she explains. ‘I’ve asked a team of arrangers to contribute, each one working on one or two songs, so that we come up with something quite different. The working title is A North Country Lass, but that will probably change. One thing is certain – I will be including some of the new arrangements in my programme at Fairfield.’ Interestingly, I note that the programme planned for February will include at least two timeless operatic arias that featured in her 1998 programme. Good music, what ever its genre, clearly remains forever young.

It’s fascinating to look back over Lesley’s career, to her very first visit to Fairfield Halls. It was in the late 1970s, when she appeared in a lunchtime recital, along with a number of other students from the Royal Academy of Music. She had a ‘nice review’ that day, she says, but few could have predicted that she would return again and again, to singlehandedly fill the prestigious south London concert hall.

Similarly, we could not have imagined that she would be giving something back to the music academy that gave her such a great start in her career. ‘I’m on the board at the Royal Academy, now,’ she explained. ‘We’ve had a busy year, celebrating its 190th anniversary!’ she says, reminding me that it’s Britain’s oldest conservatoire and the second oldest in the world.

With her place in our affections assured (she marked her 30th anniversary as a professional in 2010), Lesley is still not one to rest on past achievements. Her latest venture, she tells me, is a new alliance with clarinettist Emma Johnson and pianist Andrew West. ‘We’ve formed a new trio,’ she informs me. ‘So new we don’t even have a name for it yet!’ She mentions dates already booked in Llandudno, in April and Sherbourne in May, but it’s clearly still at the try-out stage. ‘If anyone wants to suggest a name for the group I’d like to hear from them,’ says the diva from Doncaster, a lady who listens to her public and who values the support they give her. ‘Don’t forget to mention my fan club,’ she adds, proudly. ‘They get regular updates on my career through my newsletter, Garrett’s Gossip.’

Congratulations on your success so far, Lesley. Here’s to the next 14 years!

Lesley Garrett and friends present a Grand Opera Gala with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Philip Ellis
Fairfield Halls, Croydon. Wednesday 8 February at 7.30pm. Box office 020 8688 9291.
www.lesleygarrett.co.uk; Lesley.fanclub@gmail.com