Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A singer.
On the island
Eight records
Edinburgh City Police Pipe Band
Well, my grandfather was a policeman, and we always turned out for the marches of the police pipe band, and one day I was lost during this occasion. … I was about two and a half, and I was found again behind the drum major.
The Gondoliers: Dance a Cachucha
it reminds me of these very, very happy days at school.
Triple Concerto in C major, Op. 56: II. Largo
this is very much typical of the kind of music I was involved in at the Academy of Music, because, you know, later on music always expresses an emotion in opera and something really removed from pure music. This is enjoying the art of music for its sake, and the standard of performance in this record is excellent.
Well, the reason I went to study with Dame Eva was this record.
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: Overture
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Rudolf Kempe
Well, many, many reasons rolled into one. Um by this time I'd had a little girl, Kirsty. She was five weeks old. I sang this with Scottish Opera. This was my first Wagner Roe.
every time we got in the car, Kirsty wanted to hear this record, and it reminds me very much of family, and I would miss that when I was away.
Orchestra of the Welsh National Opera, Reginald Goodall
preparing this for the performances with Mr Goodall was a long term project and it was wonderfully exciting. I mean another gate had been opened for me, an expressive flood and somebody leading you down the path.
Die Walküre: Act III (excerpt)Favourite
Kirsten Flagstad, Wilhelm Furtwängler
I've chosen the performance of Flagstad Singing with Furtwengler conducting because I think that she just was the best Wagner singer that ever will be.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:51As a very little girl you went to the primary Sunday school and got a very bad report. Do you remember what was said?
She has no voice and can't sing at all.
Presenter asks
5:51What happened when you left school? Had you got the desire to be a singer?
Oh, to be a performer at all costs I had to sing. … I pretended that I would like to be a music teacher'cause I thought this was more acceptable to my parents really and the background I was brought up with. So I went to the Academy of Music, I sat at the entrance exam and got in to the Academy of Music to study … singing, piano and cello.
Presenter asks
9:03What happened when you left the Glasgow Academy?
Well, I entered the the Cincinnat competition while I was still there and I didn't win it. I was second. But the second prize was a year at the London Opera Centre. … So I came to London for a year. and the London Opera Centre all took place in that converted cinema down in the East End. … It was a very exciting place and I couldn't have done without it. It was a marvellous bridge for me between an academy, which was very academic, into the world of theatre.
The keepsakes
The book
An anthology of poetry including Shelley, Keats and Yeats
I like poetry. So if you could compile a nice big book of Shelley and Keats, Yeats, people like that.
The luxury
A food parcel (garlic, chocolate, and wine)
I really can't decide among these three, so is there any chance I could have a wee drop of everything?
Presenter asks
20:09Are you a lyric soprano or a dramatic soprano? Or both?
Both.
Presenter asks
20:40How about the concert platform? How important a part in your plans does that hold?
A very important part and I en very much enjoy being myself on stage, being able to communicate directly with an audience.
“The first step you take as a singer is important. It puts you down a road, and that road you really have to follow, unless you're going to go backwards.”
“the feeling of standing on stage having had a baby, you know, it's a big decision for a person with a career, I mean, as anybody knows. To be able to do both was wonderful.”
“I've had an enormously enjoyable period rehearsing Brunhilde at the Coliseum, because in a way, although I've never had a home as an opera singer. That is the nearest I've come to it in lots of ways. Because I'm allowed to find myself and enormous support from everybody round about me.”