The Kathleen Ferrier awards
Who can forget the unique sound of the great Kathleen Ferrier, a creamy contralto allied to perfect diction and that indefinable ability to get truly inside whatever she was singing, be it "When I am Laid" or "Blow the Wind Southerly". Her early death seemed to embed her in the public consciousness and the awards created in her name keep her name well and truly alive.
Over the last few months I have heard performances from two recent Kathleen Ferrier award winners, both sopranos. Elizabeth Watts won the prize last year and went on to win the Rosenblatt Recital song prize at the Cardiff Singer of the world competition last month, narrowly failing to pick up the overall prize. Laura Mitchell won the Ferrier song prize this year and will no doubt continue her ascent.
Both young ladies are still in their late twenties, but they exhibit a precocious ability in recital, perhaps a far more difficult arena than the opera stage. Miss Watts won this year's outstanding young artist award at the MIDEM classical awards in Cannes. Part of the prize was an appearance at said awards - a poisoned chalice if ever there was one. About three hours into an interminable celebration of the self satisfied mediocrity of the classical recording business, Miss Watts made her appearance, to sing a couple of Mozart arias. My heart went out to her - those that hadn't already escaped to the delights of the Croisette were numb with boredom and indifferent to more or less anything. The young singer must have sensed this, but she still gave us an exquisite ten minutes, which made the whole dreary event worthwhile.
Last night, Laura Mitchell had an easier ride - a small but enthusiastic audience at Simon Rowland-Jones's enterprising North Norfolk Music Festival. Miss Mitchell, accompanied with great flair and sensitivity by the young Mexican guitarist Morgan Szymanski, performed songs by de Falla, Albeniz, Rodrigues etc with consummate skill, style and charm. The artists took turns in presenting the material, with never a moment of awkwardness or cliche, just proper professional poise and - yes - charm, which is very hard to bottle and harder still to teach.
My point is that Elizabeth Watts and Laura Mitchell can not only sing beautifully - that has to be a given, but clearly know how to deal with the performance situation and can really communicate with the audience- be it a thousand bored executives in a huge ugly cinema or a hundred "mature" music fans in a remote Norfolk Church. Onward ladies, Kathleen is smiling down on you, although she is perhaps wondering when it will be the turn of a contralto!
Over the last few months I have heard performances from two recent Kathleen Ferrier award winners, both sopranos. Elizabeth Watts won the prize last year and went on to win the Rosenblatt Recital song prize at the Cardiff Singer of the world competition last month, narrowly failing to pick up the overall prize. Laura Mitchell won the Ferrier song prize this year and will no doubt continue her ascent.
Both young ladies are still in their late twenties, but they exhibit a precocious ability in recital, perhaps a far more difficult arena than the opera stage. Miss Watts won this year's outstanding young artist award at the MIDEM classical awards in Cannes. Part of the prize was an appearance at said awards - a poisoned chalice if ever there was one. About three hours into an interminable celebration of the self satisfied mediocrity of the classical recording business, Miss Watts made her appearance, to sing a couple of Mozart arias. My heart went out to her - those that hadn't already escaped to the delights of the Croisette were numb with boredom and indifferent to more or less anything. The young singer must have sensed this, but she still gave us an exquisite ten minutes, which made the whole dreary event worthwhile.
Last night, Laura Mitchell had an easier ride - a small but enthusiastic audience at Simon Rowland-Jones's enterprising North Norfolk Music Festival. Miss Mitchell, accompanied with great flair and sensitivity by the young Mexican guitarist Morgan Szymanski, performed songs by de Falla, Albeniz, Rodrigues etc with consummate skill, style and charm. The artists took turns in presenting the material, with never a moment of awkwardness or cliche, just proper professional poise and - yes - charm, which is very hard to bottle and harder still to teach.
My point is that Elizabeth Watts and Laura Mitchell can not only sing beautifully - that has to be a given, but clearly know how to deal with the performance situation and can really communicate with the audience- be it a thousand bored executives in a huge ugly cinema or a hundred "mature" music fans in a remote Norfolk Church. Onward ladies, Kathleen is smiling down on you, although she is perhaps wondering when it will be the turn of a contralto!
posted by Tony Britten - Capriol comment at
18:16
1 Comments:
Contraltos do seem to be the viola players of the singing world.. wonderfully mellow but underrated. Ironically trained as a viola player but am now a singer- technically contralto although I don't sing classical repertoire.
Kathleen was truly wonderful, also Karen Carpenter, the easy listening 'contralto'. Ladies, Let's here more of these mellow tones. Ruby paul
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