Elizabeth Harwood

Elizabeth Harwood0:00

This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:08

What part of the country do you come from?

Elizabeth Harwood0:10

I was born um at a place called Barton Seagrave, near Kettering in Northamptonshire. But when I was nine or ten months old, I went to live in Yorkshire, near Skipton, a a a a place called Emcey.

Elizabeth Harwood0:21

And, um

Elizabeth Harwood0:24

My father was born in Scarborough. He's a Yorkshireman, and I lived there for twenty three years, twenty two, twenty three years. So really I think of myself as being Yorkshire.

Speaker 20:32

Yes, and

Elizabeth Harwood0:32

And proud of it.

Speaker 20:33

Good, good. And you come from a very musical family.

Elizabeth Harwood0:37

Yes, I do. Yes, I do. My my parents both sing, and my mother was a professional singer.

Presenter0:42

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Harwood0:43

I think my grandmother had a lovely voice, too.

Presenter0:45

So the house was always full of music.

Elizabeth Harwood0:46

Always full of music. I I knew nothing else from being in my cradle.

Presenter0:51

What was your first contribution to the musical activities?

Elizabeth Harwood0:55

I started to play the piano at about five, then I took up the violin at school about ten or eleven.

Presenter0:57

Then I took

Elizabeth Harwood1:01

Double bass too. Double bass. For fun.

Presenter1:02

Double base.

Presenter1:04

Yeah. When did singing come into the picture?

Elizabeth Harwood1:07

About I think I was about fifteen, sixteen, when I I knew I'd got a voice, but my mother wasn't madly keen letting me start too soon. Bless her, she was quite right, really. I wanted to, but she's I think she sort of knew better.

Presenter1:15

I won't

Presenter1:18

When did you decide you wanted to be a professional singer?

Elizabeth Harwood1:21

Well, I'd be about sixteen, seventeen, I suppose, that I thought I'd like to to to sing and I remember so well a friend taking me to Leeds to hear Sir Malcolm Sargent. He was, I think, conducting the Philemonia.

Elizabeth Harwood1:33

Oh, I was so excited, I never heard anything like this. And um

Elizabeth Harwood1:37

This friend of mine knew him through a cousin or through some relation, so we were able to meet Sir Malcolm afterwards and he invited us to go and have a meal with him. And I remember so well telling him and saying to him, Oh, Sir Malcolm, I'm going to sing with you one day. I'm going to be a singer. And he said, Yes, of course you are, of course, I'm sure you are. This little girl of sixteen, saying she was going to be a real aspirant, to be a real singer. However, it was about five years after that that I auditioned for him for the Brahms Requiem, for the concert at the Royal Albert Hall, and he gave me the performance, and I was so excited. And I reminded him of this. And he actually did remember taking these two youngsters to this restaurant in Leeds.

Presenter2:16

Oh good. What was your very first public appearance as a singer?

Elizabeth Harwood2:21

I think when I substituted for my mother, she was going to sing a Messiah in a small village in Yorkshire, probably a town by now, and um she couldn't go because she was I think she had a cold or something, but she said I'll send my daughter.

Elizabeth Harwood2:36

And I I think my fee was a guinea, but they gave me twenty five shillings.

Presenter2:39

Bravo

Presenter2:40

Where did you study?

Elizabeth Harwood2:41

I went to the Royal Manchester College of Music.

Presenter2:44

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Harwood2:45

When I was eighteen.

Presenter2:45

When I was eighteen. Yes. At at college, where did your ambitions lie? Oratorio, concert platform, opera?

Elizabeth Harwood2:50

I think certainly of the concert platform and Oratorio. Well, I was brought up with Oratorio, so I think that was my first love.

Elizabeth Harwood2:57

But it was the principal of the Rollmaster College, Frederick Cox, who gave me my love of opera, because he used to put on these marvellous operas every year with the college, with students. And my very first one was I was in the chorus of William Tell, and I thought, Well, this is absolutely marvellous and it really started my love of opera.

Presenter3:15

Yeah.

Presenter3:17

Well, at the end of your college career you won the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Prize, a very coveted award. Now what doors did that open?

Elizabeth Harwood3:24

Well, mainly, I think, with most of the world, a lot of the big call societies and London societies, which was always a wonderful thing for us to come to London. And I came then to live in London. After I had this first engagement with Sargent, he told me I should come and live in London.

Elizabeth Harwood3:39

And I did, and it I auditioned shortly afterwards for Sad as Wells, and they started me.

Presenter3:44

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Harwood3:45

on a th three-year contract. My first role was was Giller in Rigoletto.

Presenter3:50

Which roads did you enjoy most, Ed? said Lizzie's Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Harwood3:53

Oh, I think the the Cantosinori and um

Elizabeth Harwood3:57

I loved Constanza in entfiorung.

Speaker 23:59

And the

Elizabeth Harwood4:00

In in the yes, in the Seralia, yes, yes, which is probably better better known in England, isn't it? In as Seralia.

Elizabeth Harwood4:05

And also Susannah in in Figaro. Oh, and I must of course mention Arlancey, because we had a marvellous time with with Arlance. We had we when the copyright expired we did it. Oh, it it was great fun.

Presenter4:16

Yeah. And you were also doing concert work of course, proms and so on.

Elizabeth Harwood4:19

Yeah.

Presenter4:21

And when you left Adlers Welsh?

Elizabeth Harwood4:23

Well, then I I left um to go to to do this tour with Joan Sutherland of of um

Elizabeth Harwood4:28

Australia.

Presenter4:29

Yes. Oh this was Joan Sutherland's triumphant return home after she became a star, an international star.

Elizabeth Harwood4:32

That's right, after she became a star. She was a natural star. It was terribly exciting. The whole thing.

Presenter4:37

And that was the beginning of a tremendous amount of travelling for you, which is, of course, still going on.

Elizabeth Harwood4:41

Yes, there's

Presenter4:43

Where did your European travels take you first?

Elizabeth Harwood4:46

I think, um

Elizabeth Harwood4:48

Well, Brussels I did my first messiah abroad.

Elizabeth Harwood4:51

But, possibly with the Aces and Galatea, we took it to Drottningholm in Sweden.

Presenter4:56

Yes, a gorgeous old theatre that has hardly changed, I believe, since the eighteenth century.

Elizabeth Harwood4:56

And then I'll

Elizabeth Harwood4:58

Oh yeah.

Elizabeth Harwood4:59

It's superb. It really is with the old fashioned waves and absolutely perfect for that, of course, too, the for the Aces. And then we took that on to Versailles outside Paris in the eighteenth century theatre there, which also was

Presenter5:06

And they

Elizabeth Harwood5:12

the perfect setting. And from that then of course came um Aix-en-Provence, Salzburg and and and so on.

Presenter5:19

Yes. Now, you were the first English lady to sing Starling Rolls at the Salzburg Festival.

Elizabeth Harwood5:23

I think so, yes, the two, those the cuzy and the antifurum, yes, the serrario.

Presenter5:27

Exactly.

Presenter5:28

Well, the export of singers is now a major British industry. This is magnificent.

Elizabeth Harwood5:33

It's in it's incredible now. I mean there are there are so many really first rate English singers.

Elizabeth Harwood5:39

Oh, diet. It's marvelous, of course.

Presenter5:42

When had you made your cotton garden debut?

Elizabeth Harwood5:44

In At the Beginning of'Sixty Seven' in Arabella as the Fiacomelli.

Presenter5:49

Yeah.

Elizabeth Harwood5:49

Which was a fun part.

Elizabeth Harwood5:52

It was I I went we did it also in uh Munich the same year. It wasn't quite me, but at least it was a start at Covent Garden.

Presenter5:58

And since then?

Elizabeth Harwood6:00

In Covent Can

Presenter6:00

Yeah.

Elizabeth Harwood6:01

Um since then Rigoletto, the midsummer marriage

Elizabeth Harwood6:04

Oh, um Oscar and Ballet Masculine. I enjoyed that, I must say.

Presenter6:06

And John

Presenter6:07

And of course you do a United States tour every year.

Elizabeth Harwood6:10

Yes, um it's a long way to go, but it is they're they're wonderful audiences. I must say they're very warm people.

Presenter6:16

Yes. Have you yet done opera in America?

Elizabeth Harwood6:18

No, I make my debut there in Cosifantuti next year in in San Francisco.

Presenter6:21

Yeah.

Presenter6:22

And you brought off a nice double on BBC television at Christmastime by singing in Messiah and by singing all four soprano parts in The Tales of Halfman.

Elizabeth Harwood6:30

Yes, yes.

Elizabeth Harwood6:32

I enjoyed making Masa. That was fun, because the Ely Cathedral is so beautiful.

Elizabeth Harwood6:37

Um

Elizabeth Harwood6:38

The Tales of Hoffman? Well, I yes, I enjoyed it. I'm I don't particularly care for watching what see watching myself, but uh it was fun making it. I must say we had uh we I enjoyed it very much.

Presenter6:47

And it's being shown all over the world now.

Elizabeth Harwood6:49

Evidently, so I've I've been told, yes.

Presenter6:51

What are you up to? What's in the book at the moment?

Elizabeth Harwood6:53

At the moment well, we've we're in the middle of recording The Merry Widow. Von Karian is doing it. It we're making it in Berlin. And we we finish it off in June.

Elizabeth Harwood7:03

Um and we now do a new production at the Scala of

Elizabeth Harwood7:07

And Furong of Soralio. And um this the we I go about the end of April and we do the first nights about the eighth eighth of May, something like that.

Elizabeth Harwood7:16

which will be very interesting,'cause it's my first time at the Scala.

Elizabeth Harwood7:20

And so I'm looking forward to it very much.

Presenter7:22

I should think so. Now, how does all this travelling fit in with raising a family? You have a young son.

Elizabeth Harwood7:26

Yes, I have. Well

Elizabeth Harwood7:28

I'm very fortunate in the fact that I've got my parents living with me, and I don't worry quite so much now as I did, because there I know I can go away and leave him.

Presenter7:36

Of course.

Elizabeth Harwood7:37

With in wonderful hands.

Presenter7:38

All you've got to worry about is how much they'll spoil him before you get there.

Elizabeth Harwood7:41

Yeah.

Presenter7:42

Yeah.

Elizabeth Harwood7:42

Oh, he loves that.