As a child I felt very strongly that singing was what I wanted to do. My parents are not musicians but there was a lot of music listened to and danced to and talked about in the household. On long car journeys my siblings and I developed strong opinions on the unsuitability of Janacek's From the House of the Dead or Glagolitic Mass (my Dad's choices) as drive-time soundtracks...The Art of Fugue was a bit better but Carmen Jones was best and we could sing along. I was taken to concerts and opera a fair amount, very excited by what I heard and saw. One time I was allowed onstage after a performance of The Cunning Little Vixen. The thrill I felt seeing the other side of the theatre invisible to the audience - the mysterious cavernous backstage spaces as well as the theatre auditorium viewed from this new perspective, has not really ever left me. I had a strong voice, a lot of curiosity, and the fortune to be encouraged by my parents even if I was told at school that music wasn’t a “real career choice”. I studied at the Royal Academy and gravitated towards a mixture of contemporary and Baroque music, still the twin centres of my repertoire. I was very lucky that Laurence Cummings was the head of Historical Performance during my time there - his warmth, zest and uniquely intuitive collaborative approach has radiated through the countless projects together since then and we have shared a lot of laughter. He is also one of my favourite singers.
I don't listen to a huge amount of classical recordings. I have a turntable on which I mostly spin jazz or tunes I can dance to. But there are lodestone-like recordings of singers I revere, to which I return again and again for inspiration - one is Elly Ameling's performance of Bach's Cantata 199 - specifically the aria "Tief gebuckt und voller Reue". The immediacy of her tone is so true, and the little cadenza at the end of the B section has a moving and un-showy vulnerability as she asks "have patience with me".
AAM at the 11th Beijing Music Festival, 2008
Sumi Jo & Academy of Ancient Music, Korea, 2011
Another fantastic recording I return to is Cleo Laine's interpretation of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, first encountered in my parents’ record collection. She sings (or speech-sings) in English translation with an incredibly vivid relish, evoking every possible expressionistic colour, from gauzy to grotesque. It's a piece I have performed multiple times and, rather as in the da capo ornamentation a singer elaborates for a Baroque opera aria, I love how each interpreter is at liberty to create something entirely new and personal with the material, given freedom through the unique notation of Schoenberg’s score to sculpt new shapes and sounds.
In the past few seasons I have sung some fabulous music with AAM. Handel’s Orlando at the Barbican was a special performance for me. It’s a score I have known very well for years but never sung, and I’d been crossing my fingers in hope that I would one day. The music is so lush and the libretto so strange - magic, madness, comedy and dizzily revolving infatuation. I loved singing the role of imperious Angelica, but the true highlight was hearing my all-time favourite Handel aria “Verdi Allori” sung by Sophie Rennert as Medoro. The wistful intimacy of her interpretation made me cry.
More recently the Rameau and Charpentier double bill in October was a happy return to a piece - Pygmalion- which I first performed with Laurence approximately 23 years ago. This time, singing the role of the statue was an interesting exercise - how to suggest a physical awakening from insentient object to human being on the concert platform, and how to express in her first, halting phrases, that these are the very first thoughts and words being uttered from lips which were mere stone moments before. The other thing which made that concert very special was Laurence’s impromptu rendition of the final tenor aria*. I think that memory will glow long in the hearts of all who witnessed it.
I’m currently working on a new Handel heroine - Susanna, which I’ll perform with the Dunedin Consort in January, and starting to get to grips with Boulez' "Pli Selon Pli" , which I will perform with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in March. Alongside which I will continue with performances as Queen of the Night in Opera North's Magic Flute production.
I like a good mixture of eras and temperaments, opera and concerts - people sometimes ask if it is hard preparing very different genres of music concurrently. I think they all inform each other - one can make a technical breakthrough singing a piece of avant garde modern music which will radically alter one's approach to a Baroque opera role. An interesting example of a meeting point is a new piece by composer Tom Coult which I recently recorded with the BBC Philharmonic on the NMC label. "After Lassus" plays with themes from Lassus' sacred polyphony, joyfully juxtaposing the vocal line with an extraordinary variety of orchestral colours and textures, surprising at every turn. Have a listen. [Add shopify Link : Tom Coult: Pieces That Disappear – NMC Recordings]
Anna Dennis, December 2024
*For those of you who were not at this performance, the tenor, Thomas Walker, was unable to perform the final aria of Pygmalion due to illness and Laurence stepped in at a moment’s notice, and continued directing at the same time!
