I rather tend to say Sorry that Listenme

To Felicity Lott, it was often said that she was the most French of the English cantatrices. She loves deeply, and since his youngest age, a country whose language and culture it attracted. And the French public to it well. "With my mother, at home, we loved speak French, it seemed exotic and sexy, and as soon as she could, she sent me in France." During my studies, I was Assistant to English to Voirons, in Isère. It was in 1968. Grenoble was the Olympic Games and I've sung in choirs on the opening day. It is in this city also I met Elisabeth Maximovitch, professor who gave me the kick in the buttocks which I needed to finally devote myself to the song.

In the theatre, she meets, since its inception, the heroines of Handel ("it's so good for the voice!"), Mozart and Richard Strauss. As with many of its counterparts, the Festival of Glyndebourne, cosy shelter in the hills of Sussex, is an ideal haven, with words of order team work and musical perfection. And, as early as the 1980s, his international career took its rise, Brussels, Paris, Vienna, Milan, New York. Paris has never forgotten his "Capriccio" Countess, her Marschallin of "Knight of the rose", portraits drawn with the delicacy of a pastel, a voice clear and ductile. His love of our language, its taste of the recital the lead inevitably to the melody, subtle and demanding art.

Difficult directory

"The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein", it is his second foray in the universe unbridled of Jacques Offenbach after "Belle Hélène"; It found elsewhere the same team, Laurent Pelly for implementation stage and Marc Minkowski at the console. "As any English, Gilbert and Sullivan, the equivalent, for us, I had sung to Offenbach, from high school.". Later, I had played Hanna, the title role of "The Merry Widow". My first contact with the French Operetta was a recording of Régine Crespin, "Prima Donna in Paris"; little by little, I had inserted tunes Messenger, Oscar Straus in the second part of my recitals, and a 15 years ago, I was honoured in Yvonne spring at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. It is a difficult repertoire, and in which it cannot afford to à-peu-près. But Laurent Pelly is the best guides, always loaded with ideas.

How she sees his character of Grand Duchess, one of the signature roles created by Hortense Schneider "It is more young, she was a spoiled child who has always had what she wanted. She loves men, it looks like a Raptor who covets a prey, but obviously without much success. It is a composition for me who, in life, am not very authoritarian and that nature was not equipped with a sharp, dramatic voice. I rather tend to say: "Sorry" that: "Listen-me." To hide this, I requested a costume that is a disguise. "But the Grand Duchess also has the grace and style, elegance and humour ("I don't like people taking seriously, who are all of a piece, I prefer those who laugh and cry").

As the singer too modest, gentle and warm, which is hardly troubled appointed dame of the British Empire and decorated by the France of the Legion of honour. Think only when she surveyed the coast of Sussex, where she has her house ("this is my husband involved in the garden") or rêvet - it Paris, the Museum of romantic life and Marsh