Christopher Morley speaks to Gaynor Keeble about her life as an opera diva.
The mezzo-soprano Gaynor Keeble has long been a favourite with audiences in the Midlands, who will have enjoyed her many appearances with Welsh National Opera, among many other companies.
This University of Warwick graduate’s roles for WNO include Carmen, Maddalena (Rigoletto), Marcellina The Marriage of Figaro and Meg Page (Falstaff).
Falstaff is now again in the forefront of Keeble’s career as she returns to Verdi’s late, great masterpiece for a production at Longborough Festival Opera, cosily nestling in the Cotswolds. This time she has dropped down a notch in vocal range, taking the role of the resourceful Mistress Quickly.
I caught up with her when she was waiting at Guernsey Airport, on a flying visit to rehearse for Longborough and breaking away from a stint in the Channel Islands performing in La Fille du Regiment and Rigoletto for the Opera Diva company.
Her Mistress Quickly at Longborough will not be her first assumption of the part.
I saw Keeble in the role last autumn at Newtown for Mid-Wales Opera, a power-dressed, sassy portrayal, and very effective it was, too.
“What is it like assuming the same role in a different production?” I ask her.
Does she bring accumulated experiences to the current portrayal, or do she have to block the past out?
“Obviously having performed the role before I’ve a certain amount of acquired knowledge of the character,” she answers. “However I’m always keen to gain new insight, and working with different directors always helps with this. It’s amazing how the same character can emerge differently within a slightly different concept.”
Mid-Wales Opera’s Falstaff was designed as a touring production; Keeble has also worked as resident in
many of the world’s greatest opera-houses and she tells me about the experience of working in country-house opera such as at Longborough.
“Much of the aspects are the same, although there can be interesting moments due to inclement weather as Longborough involves going outside from the dressing-rooms to get to the stage.
“All our rehearsals have taken place in London prior to stage and piano and orchestral rehearsals at the venue itself. It’s also done on a much shorter timescale, so you have to make sure you’re ready to go when you arrive at the rehearsals.”
Keeble goes on to tell me which of her portrayals have given her most satisfaction.
“The highlight has to be singing roles at Covent Garden. I’ve been lucky enough to sing 3rd Lady in Mozart’s Die Zauberflote and Voice of the Mother with Rolando Villazon in Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann.
“Those were very exciting performances and I’m looking forward to returning there in November to sing Annina in La Traviata. But my favourite roles have to be Amneris in Aida, Delilah in Samson and Delilah and Carmen.”
Performing in opera isn’t the only thing in Keeble’s life, as she explains.
“I have a very busy teaching schedule, and I also do a lot of adjudicating for the British Federeration of Festivals.
‘‘I’ve always loved teaching and although sometimes it can be a nightmare trying to balance all the different aspects of my career, I would not want to give any of them up and feel that they all complement each other,” she says.
After Falstaff, Longborough Festival Opera turns its attentions to Siegfried, the third and penultimate opera in Wagner’s epic Ring cycle.
The staging of the cycle has long lain behind the visions of Martin and Lizzie Graham, owners of the idyllic Longborough estate, who have gradually refurbished the opera house situated in an old barn to luxury specifications, catering to match, and whose orchestra-pit, thrusting deep under the stage, is one to rival that at Wagner’s own purpose-built Bayreuth. Lady Valerie Solti, Patron of Longborough Festival Opera, and widow of the great operatic conductor Sir George Solti, remembers her husband’s response to the Grahams’ idea of mounting a Ring cycle in a converted barn in the depths of the Cotswolds countryside.
“You must be mad,” he said.
But it is indeed happening, and drawing audiences from across our own country and abroad. Already an extra performance of Siegfried has had to be added to the schedule, and everyone is now looking forward to the complete cycle at Longborough in 2013.
* Falstaff is at Longborough Festival Opera on July 5, 6, 8 and 9. Siegfried is on July 23, 25, 28 and 30. For details call 01451 830292.
