Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Welsh mezzo-soprano who made her Wigmore Hall debut at 17 after winning a scholarship to Trinity College of Music.
On the island
Eight records
Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen
No reason given in the transcript.
No reason given in the transcript.
Constanze's aria (from Die Entführung aus dem Serail)
No reason given in the transcript.
Pamina's aria (from Die Zauberflöte)
No reason given in the transcript.
The keepsakes
No book or luxury recorded for this episode.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:08What part of Wales?
Um well, what used to be Monmouthshire, and which is now Gwent, we are finally part of Wales.
Presenter asks
0:22Did you start taking music lessons yourself very early?
Ah, I was taught piano. But not for very long, because I hated it and wouldn't practise, so my mother and father wouldn't give me the money to continue.
Presenter asks
1:02Who looked after you in London?
Well, I started off in a Methodist hostel for young ladies. It was a Methodist hostel for young boys. And then I had a flat.
Presenter asks
1:17Was your grant sufficient to take you through your studies, or did you have to do spare time jobs?
No. Uh the scholarship paid for tuition alone and because I won a scholarship the county wouldn't give me a grant and so my parents helped out and I also had to do jobs like uh Sunday church services and weddings and things.
Presenter asks
2:16How did you visualize your career in your student days? Was opera your ambition, or were you thinking in terms of the concert platform?
No, again. Um I was really too young to know what I wanted to do. And when I left college at nineteen, Um I asked my professor, and he said, Well, don't worry, my dear, you'll find your own little niche somewhere in the world. So I then went to a friend who gave me a word of advice to perhaps go to John McCarthy. Um so I auditioned to him. and uh he took me on as one of the Ambrosian singers, and I did about eighteen months of session work.
Presenter asks
3:37When was it that you met the man who was to be your partner, your accompanist, in so many recital tours, James Lockhart?
Uh, at Cavent Garden, when I auditioned for the understudy of Theresa Berganza. Mhm. That particular day he was the rehearsal pianist for these auditions. And it was funny really when I look back on it because I sang the most stupid aria for me really to have sung, which was Odon Fattale, with terrible Italian. And the second aria was Voique Sapete, which I'm afraid Jim and I came to grief over, because he went his way and I went mine. It was far too fast. And I mean we just had a, you know, a quarrel about it. And um then I had to go back a couple of days later to re-audition to Schulte. The boss, yes. And um I had a different audition accompanied that day, and it was Bob Keys. So I turned round and I said to him, Well, I hope you're better than the last one, because I mean, he was absolutely terrible, he didn't follow me at all. So I said, Oh, don't worry, dear, I'll follow you.
“Um well, what used to be Monmouthshire, and which is now Gwent, we are finally part of Wales.”
“Not really until I was fourteen when um in the grammar school we had a music master there who heard me singing one day and tried to persuade me that I could perhaps take up a singing career.”
“No. Uh the scholarship paid for tuition alone and because I won a scholarship the county wouldn't give me a grant and so my parents helped out and I also had to do jobs like uh Sunday church services and weddings and things.”
“I was really too young to know what I wanted to do. And when I left college at nineteen, Um I asked my professor, and he said, Well, don't worry, my dear, you'll find your own little niche somewhere in the world.”