Denise Leigh - Soprano

FAQs

How do you juggle your career and family?
Why do you sing in bare feet?
Do you feel that God gave you a gift to compensate for you being blind?
How do you learn your music?
What do you do to look after your voice?
Being blind, how do you choose your clothes?
Did you expect to win Operatunity?
Who has impressed you the most out of all the people you've worked with?
Who, from the people you've worked with, has had the biggest influence on you?
What is your favourite concert venue?

How do you juggle your career and family?

I have an absolutely amazing group of family and friends. Stefan, my husband, looks after the children if I'm travelling, and he's not involved in the performances. If he is, the kids either come with us or stay with some fantastic friends we have local to us. It's also very convenient that their children and ours have grown up together and would choose to spend time together anyway, not to mention that Dave and Tess, mum and dad, are great mates of ours.

Why do you sing in bare feet?

There are several reasons for choosing to wear no shoes on stage.

First of all, if I'm bare foot I can't fall off my stilettos and break my neck. When I sang at the Albert Hall I did the whole sex kitten thing - red dress cut up to my middle and sexy black shoes. My nerves were such that I shook uncontrollably in my shoes and nearly had to sit on the lead cellist's knee.

But the main reason is that, being blind, I can't see the conductor and other performers. Wearing no shoes means that I pick up vibrations through the stage which help me compensate for lack of vision.

Do you feel that God gave you a gift to compensate for you being blind?

I am very lucky to be able to sing and with hard work and application I'll keep getting better and better.

However, whether it is compensation or not seems trivial when I think that I'm never going to be able to see my children, or grandchildren, or my husband (every cloud and all that), or drive a car. People may understand when I say that it is a wonderful gift and brings me great pleasure but isn't anywhere close to making up for these things.

How do you learn your music?

I have a tiny bit of vision in my left eye, useless for anything but reading under my reading aid. My reading aid is a TV screen, with a camera underneath, which picks up images from a score or anything that is placed underneath it, projects it up onto the screen, and then I can magnify it up to 50 times. I invert the image (so that I have a white note on a black background) and make it good and sharp, then I can see it.

I memorise really quickly (a throw back to my brass banding days when I memorised inner parts on the cornet) and it's just as well really. For example, when I was singing Gilda in Rigoletto as part of Operatunity I learned the entire role in 44 days.

What do you do to look after your voice?

I have a few superstitions, which all singers have - no chocolate, no junk food before a performance, lucky pants.......

But the best thing I ever discovered was the use of steam for keeping everything open and moist. I just sit with a towel over my head and a bowl of hot water and breathe in the steam for 10 minutes. You can use these fancy steamers, which are great, but I always think you're more likely to do it if you don't have to use specialist equipment. It's great for your skin as well.

Being blind, how do you choose your clothes?

I have a teenage daughter who alerts me to any fashion mistakes I'm about to make, but I also have two very trusted friends who help me with my concert wardrobe. I went to Manchester and had my colours done. I discovered that I'm an autumn person and that helps me a lot too. I'd love to wear something shockingly red or black, but neither of these are in my colour scheme so I have to stick to the golds, browns, deep reds, greens, etc.

Did you expect to win Operatunity?

No! Absolutely not!

The standard of singing going on in that last 2 week period, when we were six finalists, was so high that it could have been any of us on any day. However, when it came to it the judges were looking for someone who was open to instruction and sponge like. That's something I've always been good at. Because I can't make notes on my score in the studio, I hold everything in my head and make adjustments as I go along. That probably helped in their decision.

Who has impressed you the most out of all the people you've worked with?

This is a really hard one. And you do know that it's a great opportunity for me to name drop.

I have worked with some of the best conductors in Europe since winning Operatunity and sung on the same bill as Andrea Bocelli, Katherine Jenkins and Hayley Westenra. I've even busked with Rod Stewart when I joined him at an event one summer. But the person who has impressed me most has been 2 people really - isn't that a cop out?

First of all, a jazz trumpeter called Guy Barker. I sang with Guy in Richmond Theatre at an event called the Shooting Stars Gala (we dueted on Gershwin's Summertime). He is so much at the top of his tree that he took great liberties - playing on half valves, making that sexy muted dirty sound throughout his range. It was an almost sexual experience.

But the person who impressed me the most for just sheer magnitude and awe inspiring presence was Sir George Martin.

I met him a fortnight after singing in Rigoletto at ENO when we were both opening the wing of a school for the blind in Surrey. Now it's rare for me to be lost for words but, believe me, I was so overcome with respect and joy at meeting this man that I felt like a tongue tied child in his presence.

Who, from the people you've worked with, has had the biggest influence on you?

I should say some singing teacher or other shouldn't I, but it's got to be John Fraser, my producer from EMI Classics and an Operatunity judge.

When we work together in rehearsal or in the studio he can coax sounds out of me that I didn't even know were there.

He never shouts at me, even when I'm being thick, but he's very forceful in a gentle way. Trouble is, so am I. We both know what we want and need to get our own way but his experience in the recording studio, his gentle manner and sense of humour never fail to win me over.

After a heavy day in the studio he always wants to spend time with me - talking about anything but what we've been doing all day. Some of my most treasured memories involve John. I always feel that even if John and I weren't working together in the studio and had met in totally non musical circumstances that we'd still have been friends.

What is your favourite concert venue?

How can I answer this one? It's all dependent on the sort of repertoire I'm singing.

For sheer enormity and overwhelming atmosphere, I'd choose Hyde Park for Proms in the Park.

For a deceptively intimate feel, lending itself especially well to Baroque music, I'd say the Royal Albert Hall.

For beauty of sound, and vocal assistance I'd say Symphony Hall Birmingham.

But, for out and out sentimentality and where my heart lives musically, I'd say the London Coliseum.

I went back to ENO for a special performance to celebrate 100 years of the Coliseum, and it hit me afresh what a wonderful building it is: especially now it's been renovated. Whenever I go back to see an opera, or to work, I'm welcomed like I've gone home. I love it.

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