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Yorkshire diva with a heart as big as her voice is going back to where it all began
Lesley Garrett is a whirlwind of energy and passion.
Having just finished a run in the hit West End musical Carousel, she is planning a UK tour later in the year after a return to the Harrogate Festival where she made her debut 29 years ago.
In between, she manages to shoe-horn in appearances on ITV daytime chat show Loose Women as well as bringing up two teenage children.
"You'll find that people who have enormous success are very hard-working and you can't switch that off. Once that motor is running then move out of the way," she laughs. "I'm coming through! And that motor is running most of the time. I think I'm lucky, I was born with enormous energy and I love a lot of what I do."
Born and bred in Doncaster, opera singer may not have been the first career that sprang to mind. But coming from a musical family where hard work was rewarded, determined Lesley was sure she could make it as a top soprano.
Lesley says her parents were the best role models for her. They both worked on the railways before deciding to become school teachers and in her father's case, ultimately becoming a headmaster.
"They both were determined to better themselves, which is the expression that was often used in my childhood. And they had great ambition and had to work extremely hard to realise that ambition. That was a wonderful example to me and made me think, yes, I can become an opera singer. My father's just become a headmaster, my mother became head of music in a middle school, and she worked in a ticket office when I was a child."
It's hard not to feel breathless listening to Lesley, let alone reading her achievements. She speaks as she works, at breakneck speed.
Lesley was awarded the CBE in 2002 for her services to music. She is regarded as one of Britain's most popular sopranos. She regularly appears in opera, in concert, on television and CD. Not only has she garnered huge critical acclaim, she is something of that clich – a national treasure – fans hold her in huge affection. It may be because she is not afraid to tackle things the purists may balk at, like appearing on television reality shows such as Strictly Come Dancing and starring in West End musicals.
"I don't feel driven, I just feel as if I'm enjoying every second of my life. I think it's a passion to communicate: it's a powerful urgency – a powerful sense that I need to put before the public the music I believe in, and love and feel passionate about. I think there's no higher calling in a way," she says.
"There are very few higher callings than that of an artist because we are charged with enabling the public to access emotions when perhaps otherwise they might find that difficult to do. I think that's the purpose of music – to help us come to terms with our feelings, to help us explore our feelings and our responses to words and to sounds that resonate with our own experience and help us to understand ourselves, and to understand what we are all going through I suppose – what we're all experiencing on an emotional level."
She is married to a her second husband, Peter, a GP, and they have two teenage children. They stay in the North most weekends. "It's where I go to revive myself. It's where I go to breathe. There's something about taking in a lungful of Yorkshire air that's different to anywhere else in the world: I breathe in my heritage, I breathe in my family, I breathe in the history, the great history that is Yorkshire.
"It's such an extraordinary county and so varied, and so special. And it will always have a vital place in my heart. All my family still live in Yorkshire, I have a home in Yorkshire, and I always will have. So yes, it is extremely important to me to sing regularly in my home county.
"And yes, it always will be. It's also the most nerve- racking because it's the place I love most. The more one cares about a place and the people in that place, the more important it is to do well. I've always valued my history, my personal history, my roots. That hasn't stopped me experiencing a very diverse life. And it's because of the solid start I received at home. Solid in every way – solid in the sense I was much loved and encouraged and valued, and I still am. And I think if you are safe in that knowledge then you can do anything really."
Returning next month to Harrogate, where it all started, will be quite emotional for Lesley.
"I have a lot of association with the town. But I'm going to present a completely different programme this time with lots of material people won't have heard me sing before. I'm also bringing a young baritone I'm also excited about – Dominic Kraemer – a recent graduate from St John's College, Oxford."
Bringing a new musician to Harrogate is important to her because of the opportunity the Festival gave her own career. "The very first time I ever performed at the Harrogate Festival was when I was a student and they had a young singers' recital programme which was to give new singers, as I was then, experience at a high level of recital giving. And I gave a recital – my first ever recital – at the Swan Hotel and it was patchy, let's say," she laughs.
"That would be a kind way of putting it – there were songs I wasn't sure I did justice to – but it was nonetheless a fantastic opportunity for me and a great learning experience.
"So I asked if I might have permission when I was asked to come back to bring a young singer with me, partly to continue that wonderful tradition. I think it is an important part of the work of festivals, and a very important part of the work of the Harrogate Festival, to encourage the artists of tomorrow."
With all her success and busy family, does she ever think to the future and slowing down?
"I never plan. I just wait to see what comes up and something always does. And I'm always extraordinarily surprised and grateful that people still want to hear me sing. I think I'm looking for new challenges; I'm very keen to learn some new music and to find some different ways of performing, which is partly why I'm bringing Dominic with me, to do the duets. I love what I do – with a passion – until I physically I need to stop, I don't see any reason to."
Being passionate, living the music, not planning, is the root of her success.
"I have a sense that this is what I'm here for, I'm here to make this music available to people and make it as wonderful as it can be. I think I've always had a very strongly-held conviction that I'm here to serve the music. I think that's what distinguishes a classical singer from a pop singer – I don't matter – the only thing that matters is the music. And the music will continue after me, and it's my job to hand it on and I feel a very strong sense of duty in
that way."
The Gala Festival Concert featuring Lesley Garrett, sponsored by Deloitte, is at the Royal Hall, Harrogate on Friday, July 10, at 8pm. Call the ticket hotline: 0845 130 8840 or visit www.harrogate-festival.org.uk
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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