Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Opera singer who champions popular accessibility, known for playful performances and dubbed 'Britain's darling diva'.
On the island
Eight records
Danza, Danza, Fanciulla Gentile
Pavarotti sounds a lot like my dad… My father has the most wonderful tenor voice… and I think Pavarotti is the most amazing singer ever. And Danza, Danza Franchula, is a song I used to sing when I was at the Royal Academy of Music, so there's lots of reasons for picking this.
Procession to the Minster from Lohengrin
I've picked some Wagner. Again, there's a special reason for that. I have a bit of trouble with Wagner, I have to confess. It's long… I thought if I had the Grimethorpe Colliery Band playing Wagner, there was a chance I'd grow to appreciate it.
I've performed Handel twice with Ann… and I think that performers are almost as important to me as the music. The quality of the performance is everything. And she's just unsurpassable to me. I love Handel.
It was a hit for her at the time. I heard it on the radio a lot and then it meant so much to me. I got it for myself and played it whenever I needed to and I needed to a lot.
This was the music that was played while I was trying not to fall off [the tightrope].
Broadway BabyFavourite
It's a remarkable song and it can be sung in lots of different ways, but she sings it like nobody else.
Piano Sonata in B-flat major, D. 960 (Andante movement)
Apart from the nostalgia involved, I do think Imogen is one of the best pianists in this country, and I don't think anybody plays Schubert quite as well as she does.
This is pure memories and nostalgia because I gave birth to my son Jeremy on New Year's Day this year… this number, a boy like you is all about a mother's love for her son.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:00You've been compared to Madonna on occasions. But you didn't mind being compared to her, supporters?
Frankly, as long as it interests people in the music and encourages people to come and hear for themselves what we're doing and see more, perhaps more importantly, what we're doing, then I'm game for anything, frankly.
Presenter asks
1:26Was [baring your bottom] a kind of rip cord on the costume?
It was hooks and eyes all down the back, traditional way… and then I was sort of doing my number with the chorus girls behind me, and they were surreptitiously undoing Hooks and Eyes down the back, and then at the appropriate moment, I whirled round and tossed this garment into the wings, and there were whoops of delight, and then the girls crowded round me with a coat.
Presenter asks
2:47You had an ulterior motive for doing that though, didn't you? You wanted to deflect attention at this vital moment [avoid hitting a Top C].
I'd had a very, very bad car accident just before we started in production… I broke my breastbone and some ribs. And it was agony trying to sing… And the producer wanted me, instead of one of these Top C's and the big cadenza, to do this quick flash, you see. So I thought, oh, anything that gets me out of singing another Top C, anything that saves on the agony.
The keepsakes
The book
I think I'd like a photograph album with all my family, all my friends, and my lots and lots of pictures of my Jeremy in it, just to look at and cry over.
The luxury
in the end, I've plumped for a tightrope. I thought I could sling it between two trees and I could practice my tightrope walking, because I got quite good, you know. ... if I fell off, I wouldn't hurt myself on the sand.
Presenter asks
7:29What sort of songs did you play and sing round the piano when you were little?
Oh, it was a fantastic mixture. Um, everything from opera… through music hall numbers, war songs, folk music… My grandfather's clock was too big for the shelf, very closely followed by One Fine Day, Puccini's One Fine Day. And it was just music, it was just wonderful music.
Presenter asks
10:16Was your singing and your ideas about performing helped at school?
Oh, enormously. My school were amazing because they really fostered what they could see was an ability… It was an ordinary grammar school and we had three orchestras, we had choirs, we had French and German song classes…
Presenter asks
18:23Did you think you perhaps wouldn't be able ever to sing again [when you were ill]?
Yes, I did. And that's never left me, to be honest. That appalling fear is still in a little very secret place. And I think that's a good thing, because that informs my singing. It was a thing I took so completely for granted, and suddenly I couldn't do it. I could not remember how to do it. I opened my mouth and nothing came out.
Presenter asks
20:05Was the breakdown of your marriage because you spent too much time working on the professional side of your life that in the end your marriage had to give?
I was far too young and inexperienced and immature to know how to make the two things coexist, and all I knew was I belonged on the stage. And I felt terrible about making that choice. I felt desperately guilty. And I think I always will. But the stress of that, coupled with this illness, I think was enough just to make me completely lose my voice.
Presenter asks
26:29There are those people who would say that there's a point at which you make [opera] more than accessible, you actually vulgarise it. Do you take that point at all?
Yes, I do take that point. I listen very carefully to what they have to say. I think for me the guideline always is honesty. If I feel the characterisation that I'm attempting and the style of the piece that I'm in has a truth about it and has a compatibility with the music… then it will work. Anything less is a gimmick, and I think that's appalling.
“Frankly, as long as it interests people in the music and encourages people to come and hear for themselves what we're doing and see more, perhaps more importantly, what we're doing, then I'm game for anything, frankly.”
“My school were amazing because they really fostered what they could see was an ability… It was an ordinary grammar school and we had three orchestras, we had choirs, we had French and German song classes in the lunch breaks taken by the language teachers, we had comp music competitions.”
“I opened my mouth and nothing came out. And there was nothing wrong with me… I lost my joy. I just hadn't there was no happiness in my life if I couldn't sing. I thought I would go mad. I can't tell you what a terrible time it was.”
“I got this letter in the post and I opened it and all these stones fell on my feet. And it was my mum, and there was a letter in it, and she said, I thought you needed some Yorkshire grit, so I've sent you some. Spit on your hands and take a fresh hold, love you'll be all right.”
“Our eyes met across a crowded dressing room, I had my hair in pinkles and my face covered in cold cream, and we just knew that that was it. We just recognized each other instantly.”
“Trust you to be taking curtain calls in two different theatres at the same time.”