A Silvery Singer With Center-Stage Looks

Kate Royal has stirred up more attention in her native Britain than just about any young soprano in recent years, and New York audiences will have an opportunity to learn what all the fuss is about when she gives a recital at the Frick Museum on Sunday afternoon, part of a four-stop American recital debut tour. Currently, Ms. Royal’s singing is best known here from her stunning initial recording, a recital disc entitled simply “Kate Royal.”The many who have fallen under the spell of the disc — an eclectic mix of Spanish songs to works by Richard Strauss, with an aria from Stravinsky’s “The Rake’s Progress” thrown in for good measure — will be pleased to know that the recital will include much of the same music. “I have added more Debussy, one of my favorite song composers,” she said by telephone from London on the eve of her departure for America. “Some of the Baudelaire songs,” she continued, “and also more Strauss.” She traces her interest in Spanish songs to hearing authentic flamenco singers when she had an opera engagement in Madrid. “It blew me away — the energy of these singers really impressed me.”Her interest in flamenco songs is indicative of a broad appreciation for music outside the classical realm. Her father is a pop songwriter and her mother is a dancer, so Ms. Royal, still in her 20s, went through “a role reversal” when she “made the transition from Andrew Lloyd Webber to Mozart” at around age 16. “We would listen to Stevie Wonder or David Bowie downstairs, and then I’d go upstairs and listen to ‘Pelléas et Mélisande.’ And I discovered the song repertoire, a whole other world I was desperate to get ahold of.” Although as a teenager she sang jazz and cabaret, she sees no prospects for a crossover recording. “It’s not my thing. But music is one world,” she says, “and you can learn a lot from pop singers. Joni Mitchell can be hugely inspiring in the way she interprets a poem.”Ms. Royal’s captivating voice — which has both body and a silvery purity — and model good looks have made for a meteoric career with a breathtakingly broad repertoire. Last year in London, she sang Monteverdi’s “Poppea” at the English National Opera and the contemporary composer Thomas Adès’s “The Tempest” at Covent Garden. She sees the diversity as part of a period of experimentation during which she is “finding my feet and where my voice is.” Mozart and Britten, she has already concluded, are right for her. She has sung works by both composers — “Die Zauberflöte” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” — at Glyndebourne, where she made her debut in 2005. “‘Ilia’ in Mozart’s ‘Idomeneo’ is my next big project,” and Handel, too, is on the horizon.“‘The Tempest’ was my first foray into a new piece. It was an amazing experience,” she said. “I brought friends who are not involved in classical music and they got so much out of it.”For her next disc, she has focused on a program of contemporary opera arias. “I’m going through so much material trying to decide what to include,” she said. “I’m not ready for a Mozart or Strauss disc — too much pressure!” A contemporary work will also serve for her American opera debut in 2010, when she sings Rosina in a revival of John Corigliano’s “The Ghosts of Versailles” at the Metropolitan Opera.She mentions Eileen Farrell as a singer whose recordings she admires. “I like singers with personalities I can hear in the voice, so I can understand them as people. I take a little bit from everyone I hear, but I try to find the core emotion of the moment, and you can’t rely on anyone else for that.”Given the scope of her activity, is she afraid of doing too much too soon? “If the voice says ‘no,’ I have to say ‘no,'” she said.“It’s a strange process going on tour,” she continued, contemplating resuming her packing after our conversation. “You don’t know the places where you’re going or what kind of an emotional experience you will have. Some people can be anywhere and it doesn’t matter, but I’m not like that. It is kind of a love/hate thing. But I can’t wait.”

A Silvery Singer With Center-Stage Looks

A Silvery Singer With Center-Stage Looks

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