Dame Felicity Lott, one of the great sopranos of our time, is about to bow out as a solo recitalist. Her performance at Wigmore Hall tomorrow, always a favorite venue for her, will be her farewell. Which is not to say that we shall never hear her again--she has just recorded the next installment of Clara Schumann lieder for conductor John Axelrod's Brahms Beloved project on Telarc. And her compatriot Alfred Brendel has followed his retirement from the concert stage with a busy second career of lectures (often with musical at-the-piano examples), writings and the like.
The interesting question will be what will now happen to her opera career. Many leading singers follow their great parts with a waiting gallery of character roles--tenors go from a Siegfried to a Loge, baritones from Figaro to the pontificating Dr. Bartolo, sopranos from the Marschallin to Janacek's nasty mother figures or the Witch in Hansel and Gretel. Some sopranos go to mezzo roles, as another dame, Gwyneth Jones, did. And so did Rosalind Plowright (a few go the other way). But Flott, as she is popularly and affectionately known, has never had that beefy lower voice that might open up the mezzo range, and there are no indications as yet that she wants to turn up in character parts.
But never say never. There are also some lovely things in musical theater were she so minded...
Nevertheless, now seems like a good time to share some memories of her magnificent art. For me, it was all distilled one glorious night with Welsh National Opera at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton, with Flott as Strauss' Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier opposite the first Octavian from a young Susan Graham. I was a student, and I had rarely seen anything so dramatically truthful. Lott exhibited all of her famous silvery tone and crystal clear diction--yet the quintessential moment of that performance was the Marschallin's last utterance. When Faninal casually points out the ways of the young, as the love the Marschallin has just let go embraces his new, younger flame, she seemed to, momentarily, physically crumple. The voice caught, the tone broke down and, one sensed, the character only barely managed to force out the words, "Ja, ja."
Because singing is often a balance. Between technique and emotion, between beauty and dramatic effect, between caution and risk-taking. A great voice is just where it starts. Nobody has appreciated this more than Felicity Lott.
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