Felicity Lott
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 13 July 2008
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the soprano, Dame Felicity Lott. She is one of Britain's best known and best loved singers and has given performances in opera houses the world over under the batons of such notable conductors as Bernard Haitink, Carlos Kleiber and Georg Solti.
As a child, she had always loved singing, but was, she says, a shy, gawky girl who didn't have sharp enough elbows to get to the top. She tried her hand at teaching, but found she was so crippled with nerves that she had to abandon the idea. By good fortune she was delivered to a singing teacher who spotted her talent and gave her encouragement. It was exactly what she needed - she has enjoyed a career spanning more than 30 years and over that time has won a large and loyal army of fans.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Moonlight Music - the prelude to the final scene of Capriccio by Richard Strauss Book: Les Miserables by Victor Hugo Luxury: Lots of champagne and pistachio nuts.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello I'm Krestey Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. |
| 0:05.0 | For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. |
| 0:08.2 | The program was originally broadcast in 2008. My cast away this week is the soprano Dame Felicity Lott. Her skills as a singer, actor and storyteller are relished by audiences internationally |
| 0:36.4 | and after 30 years performing her concerts remain instant sellouts. |
| 0:40.6 | Yet her loyal fans are lucky ever to have seen her on stage at all. |
| 0:44.0 | She planned to be a teacher but was so crippled with nerves and the thought of addressing |
| 0:48.9 | a class that she abandoned the idea. |
| 0:51.9 | She was, she says, a shy gawky girl who never thought she was good enough or had |
| 0:56.5 | sharp enough elbows to get to the top. I'm constantly inadequate except |
| 1:01.4 | when I get on stage she says and even then someone will come |
| 1:04.9 | round afterwards and pierce the bubble I veer from laughter to tears all the time and |
| 1:09.5 | try not to stop at the dangerous bits in between. So I wonder Felicity lot, how an earth to someone |
| 1:16.0 | who couldn't face teaching because the element of performance in front of a class scared |
| 1:21.4 | them so much, get in front of, let's call them paying customers, |
| 1:25.0 | the audience, and have the confidence to sing. |
| 1:28.0 | I suppose because I'm doing something I've learnt, or I hope, |
| 1:32.0 | ideally I've learned what I'm doing and I mean with a chance, but with standing |
| 1:37.9 | up in front of a class, if I have to speak, I mean even here now, it fills me with terror really and standing in front of a class of |
| 1:45.4 | of unwilling students was I only did it in France actually and I mean it was a |
| 1:50.8 | complete joke. One of the important elements there is that people have paid to come and see you and therefore they're buying into the idea that this is somebody they like, which a class might not be doing. |
| 2:01.0 | Yes, that's right, it's awful, isn't it? |
| 2:04.0 | No, I don't think so it makes perfect sense, really. |
... |
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