Lesley Garrett podcast transcript

Scott Matthewman, The Stage [SM]: Hello, and welcome to the first in a series of podcasts from The Stage, with me, Scott Matthewman. We’ll have lots more coming up in the weeks and months to come, so make sure you don’t miss a single second. Make sure you hop along to our website, http://www.thestage.co.uk/podcasts, where you’ll find all the information you need to subscribe, and have future episodes download automatically as soon as we publish them. If you’ve got any comments about the podcast, you can go to that same address, that’s http://www.thestage.co.uk/podcasts, or you can email us — and the address for that is podcasts@thestage.co.uk.

This week, Lesley Garrett. Former principal soprano at the ENO, now a member of their board and currently in the West End in her first ever musical theatre role, as the Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music at the London Palladium. Which is where I caught up with her to talk about the latest string to her bow, her new album, When I Fall In Love.

[AUDIO CLIP: WHEN I FALL IN LOVE]

Lesley Garrett [LG]: It’s a sort of celebration, I think, of love in all its forms. Every single song on this album means something very personal and very special to me. It’s taken me quite a while to compile it, because I wanted it to be exactly, as I say, a very personal expression of — well, the love that I am fortunate enough to have in my life. Because I think when you think about love songs, it’s easy to think about romantic love, but there’s love of children, love of family, my parents, my friends of course. Lots of different kinds of love. I think each of these songs, as I say, I identify personally with and I hope the listeners will also find that they will identify with them too.

SM: So it’s almost like a cover version of Desert Island Discs?

LG: (laughs) Well, I suppose you could put it like that. It’s funny though, because I think for opera singers, cover versions are all we ever do, because obviously normally I’m singing music that’s several hundred years old.

SM: I was going to say that, because one of the tracks on here is The Way We Were, which [has] obviously the wonderful Barbara Streisand version…

LG: Exactly, yes.

SM: And opera, because it’s come from the great tradition of every performance being new, you might have to compete in terms of reviews with a previous performer, but with songs like that, you’re actually competing with the existing recordings.

LG: Yes, that’s true.

SM: So the interpretation of songs by the original artist can still be very much in the listener’s mind.

LG: But that’s my point of departure. That’s my inspiration, if you like. And you’re quite right, another aspect of this album is that I’ve tried to include songs that are, um, have been made famous by artists that I really admire, and Barbara Streisand is one such.

[AUDIO CLIP: THE WAY WE WERE]

LG: I’ve covered various Streisand numbers in the past, and I think it’s important not to be daunted by those arguably ‘perfect’ recordings, because I think all composers, whether it’s Mozart or Jacques Brel, want their music to be explored and developed by different artists. Because after all it is the artists that can create the music, or express the music on behalf of the composer. And there are other, similar wonderful women who I have been inspired by over the years. People for instance like Edith Piaf. I do my version of Je Ne Regrette Rien, and arguably it’s impossible to top Piaf and I’m not in any way trying to do that. She’s unique and extraordinary. At the same time she is inspirational and I think she would hate to feel that other singers were inhibited from singing the songs she made famous, and my respect for her. So I hope she’d approve of the attempt I’ve made.

[AUDIO CLIP: JE NE REGRETTE RIEN]

LG: What I would like to say is that all of the songs on this album have been orchestrated by a wonderful composer in his own right, my dear friend Tolga Kashif, who perhaps is known to your listeners from his Queen Symphony, which he has had a lot of success with. He and I go back a long way and he has a real understanding of my sound, and he’s written the most wonderful arrangements that do, hopefully, take the songs on to another place and also allow me to express myself vocally, in the way that I can.

SM: There’s one in particular, that I noticed. With La Mer, which most people know the tune and the melody from Beyond the Sea…

[AUDIO CLIP: LA MER]

SM: And I noticed, in the introduction, it’s got elements of Debussy’s La Mer sort of creeping in to the orchestration.

LG: Oh, I’m so glad you appreciated that, that’s great. Exactly so. We looked at all, at several La Mers, if you like, and tried to bring the inlfuence of those composers to bear on this. Yes, and we’ve seen it as much more of a reflective piece. Tried to paint the seascape literally in the music, which I think Tolga’s done brilliantly. And that particular song was very much for my father, because he has a great love of the sea, and fishing, and all things marine, and he was very much in my mind when I sang that song.

SM: I noticed that you’ve got quite a few tracks, both La Mer and Je Ne Regrette Rien completely in French and If You Go Away is half in English and half in French…

LG: A mixture, yes.

SM: Is it just coincidental that the album as a whole is in English and French or was it a planned move to only use that as the only foreign language?

LG: Er, it was more a question of the song selection and then trying to really select the language that best expressed the song. And I sing in French, I sing in Italian, I sing in German, you know, regularly, but on this particular occasion… and I suppose perhaps because, I don’t know, love and the French language kind of go together, don’t they. It just seemed right to do those songs in that way. The Jacques Brel I love the English version so much, I just took the decision to mix it up.

[AUDIO CLIP: IF YOU GO AWAY]

LG: And it’s often known as, you know, Ne Me Quitte Pas, or If You Go Away, so that just seemed to work. I’m very, I suppose I’m very instinctive about these things, it’s just what feels right to me. I’ve always been that way. Most decisions I’ve made I’ve not made with my head, I’ve made with my heart.

SM: When it comes to, particularly in opera, the choice of whether to sing in the original language or in the English language — you’re on the ENO Board of Directors, and the ENO’s very strong about singing all its operas in English and I notice in your autobiography you’re absolutely vehemently in favour of that. But at the same time earlier on in your autobiography when you talk about your days at the Royal Academy, you talk about how although that can create a greater connection with the audience, the original language has a better connection with the original composer.

LG: Yes, that’s very true, and very well put. The… What’s absolutely crucial to singers is that the word setting and the phrasing are at one, if you like. I can only make a beautiful phrase if the vowels are kind of gratefully written. I mean, in other words, good vowels make a good sound, and if you write very small, taut vowels, with sort of short consonants at the top of a phrase, it’s going to be very difficult to make that beautiful, it’s going to make that difficult to be understood. And obviously the original composer would have thought of all these things, when he or she was writing a particular aria. And it’s something — it’s a great challenge, that aspect of translating the libretto is a great challenge for translators and something for instance, that Jeremy Sams, who’s just been directing me here in the Palladium in The Sound of Music, is an absolute master at.

So, yes, singing in English has the great advantage of being the language of this country, and therefore the connection with the audience is immediate. And the communication is, again, immediate and very fulfilling, for the artist. But the disadvantage is that unless you have a really, really good librettist/translator, you aren’t going to necessarily going to be able to make the most beautiful phrases. So it’s a real juggling act.

SM: I have to say, one of my favourite tracks on the album is the duet with Michael Ball, Come What May.

LG: Yeah.

[AUDIO CLIP: COME WHAT MAY]

SM: It’s only when I was listening to that, that I realised quite how many tracks have been taken from film. Has film been a great influence in your life?

LG: Very much so, very much so. I’ve always felt that film is a very close relation to opera, really, a close relative of opera. I don’t think you can imagine a good film without a really good film score, can you, and I mean it’s the same for opera, really. It’s drama supported by music. And music theatre, come to that. The two absolutely have to be married together. And yes, I’ve been hugely inspired by a great many films. And a great many films have used classical music, almost lifted whole works, as perfect expressions of the drama. I’m thinking of Samuel Barber’s Adagio, obviously, in Platoon. That’s the first example that spring to mind, but I’m sure you could think of lots of others. And again, that was another criteria for my selections for the album. But a lot of the tracks are from film, and you know, are very powerful. And that’s the other great thing about film scores. They are on the whole very symphonic and very powerful. And very contemporary as well, which is something I’m…

SM: I was going to say, because Come What May is probably the newest track in terms of when it was written.

LG: Yes.

SM: It was first used in Moulin Rouge…

LG: Which was just the most brilliant film from my point of view, because it married music and drama and cinematography together in a unique way. Baz Luhrmann, wasn’t it?

SM: Yes.

LG: I just think, oh… It didn’t surprise me at all when he went on to produce La Boheme on Broadway. Because he obviously has a very strong sense of this, of how music and drama are sort of mutually interchangeable and sort of mutually expressive, aren’t they? But it was wonderful doing that track with Michael, because he’s a very very dear friend, and I owe him a great deal. And we sort of do this to each other all the time, we challenge one another with new bits of repertoire, and he didn’t know that particular song, to my amazement. So, I had the duet kind of made for us, and had to teach it to him, which was great fun.

SM: One other thing that you and Michael both have in common is that you’ve both been celebrity judges on celebrity singing shows.

LG: Yes, that’s true.

SM: You did Comic Relief does Fame Academy two years ago. Are you going to be a judge this year?

LG: Yes, I am. Yes, I did promise them if I could, I would come back and do it again. And the Really Useful Group here have very kindly allowed me to donate my holiday, because I have a week’s holiday next month, and I’m going to use that holiday to be a judge for Comic Relief does Fame Academy… I’m really looking forward to it, actually. It was great fun last year and what’s wonderful as well, to see, is — and I do think reality television shows that do this are really great to take part in — I just think it’s great to see people really challenging themselves and discovering new talents and improving their ability. I had the same experience myself with Strictly Come Dancing.

SM: Yes.

LG: I’m not a fan of reality television shows that are into ritual humiliation. I don’t think you’ll see me in the jungle eating Wichita grubs…

SM: I know, that’s what was noticeable for me, with Soapstar Superstar that Michael Ball was a judge on, was that, I must admit, I tuned in expecting to see just a cheap filler for ITV and then I found that both Michael and Martine McCutcheon were offering really sensible, practical advice not couched in any technical language, so it was quite understandable by people who were maybe thinking of a career in singing, at home thinking, “how can I apply that advice?” Which is something that a lot of these celebrity shows don’t necessarily do. And a lot of the judges are just there, you think, they’re there for the grandstanding, getting the audience to cheer or boo without necessarily offering the advice.

LG: Well, it’s a good mixture, I thought. Yeah, you’re right, some judges do do that. But I think that has its part to play. It’s good to get the audience engaged, but I think anybody who has had, or does have, a singing career only really wants to see people improve as vocalists. And I’ll certainly be — my judging style is certainly very similar, in as much as I definitely would want to be encouraging that which I can see is good, and has potential, rather than crushing people for what they can’t do. Um, I’ll leave that to the other judges!

SM: And of course, being involved in The Sound of Music, where the role of Maria with Connie Fisher was chosen through a reality show.

LG: Yeah. And it did demonstrate very clearly that the public are very discerning, because she was the perfect choice. And there was nothing manipulated about that programme, I can tell you. It was entirely the public’s decision, and it was good that they listened to the advice of David Ian and Andrew Lloyd Webber, because obviously they had Connie very much in their sights, and they’ve been proved completely correct, because she’s brilliant and she’s the perfect Maria.

SM: And how have you found moving into the world of musical theatre?

LG: A real challenge, I can tell you. It’s not an easy option to opera, music theatre. Developing the stamina to do, well, in my case seven shows a week — I’m allowed to have Thursdays off. I negotiated that because I thought, “I’ve got to fit the rest of my career into one day a week!” — so I managed to do that, but even seven shows a week is a real challenge. There’s a great discipline about the work here, and the people I’m working with, I have to say, are some of the most talented, extraordinary artists I’ve ever had the privilege of sharing a stage with. Everybody in the cast, the ensemble and the children, are enormously talented and hugely professional. And I’ve learnt a great deal from being here, and they’re all much more experienced than I am, because I’ve, like Connie, never done a musical before. But the great thing from my point of view about doing The Sound of Music, I think, is that I’ve met a whole new audience — because, clearly, most of the people who are coming to see The Sound of Music are not regular operagoers and have not heard a classically trained lyric soprano before. And I don’t in any way modify my sound for Rogers & Hammerstein’s music — it wouldn’t be appropriate to do that, I think the sound that’s needed is very much an operatic sound, and there’s many a precedent for that. But what’s lovely from the comments I get, both in letters and at the stage door, is that I know people have absolutely never heard this kind of singing, and it’s turning them on hopefully to an entirely new area of repertoire. And if I can bring people to different repertoire, then you know, I really feel I’m getting somewhere.

SM: And you seem to have done that in your recording career, throughout all your albums. This one’s less operatic than most of your previous ones, but there’s always been a mix of operatic arias and songs from other disciplines.

LG: Yes, I’ve always tried to sing a broad range of different kinds of musical genre. Because I was brought up doing that, to be honest, and because I have a really healthy respect and love for a diverse range of music. I would never say one area of music is superior to another. You cannot possibly say that the score of The Sound of Music is an inferior score to an opera score. It is a sublime score, as is all of the opera scores that I’m fortunate enough to perform. They’re just different kinds of music, and I bring everything I have to all the songs that I ever sing. And I feel my job is to express that individual composer’s wishes and to try and find in that music what that composer wanted the public to love, and to try and move the public with that music. I think at its best music can be, certainly singing can be almost cathartic for a, to the listener. I do find a lot of people come and talk to me and say that, you know, a particular song that I sang enabled them to understand an emotion they’d been struggling with, you know, or enabled them to appreciate a spiritual quality they hadn’t been aware of. You know, I think, you know, music — that’s the job of music, it helps us to reach those innermost parts of ourselves that we can’t access easily. And on a good day, that’s hopefully what I’ve managed to do.

SM: Well, I think we can’t really top that for a closing sentiment, can we? Lesley Garrett thank you very much for the interview.

LG: Thank you.

SM: So that’s it for this week. Special thanks to Lesley Garrett. When I Fall In Love is out now on Universal Classics & Jazz, and there are links to find out more on the podcast blog at www.thestage.co.uk/podcasts. That’s also the place to go if you want to leave any comments. Alternatively, you can email them to us at podcasts@thestage.co.uk. Thanks also this week to Adrian Read, Clare Nash and the London Palladium. I’m Scott Matthewman — goodbye from The Stage and see you soon.