Rebecca Evans

Rebecca Evans. Welsh Soprano.
Honorary Fellow, 2000.

A Chat with Renowned Soprano Rebecca Evans

Rebecca Evans is a Soprano. Her operatic career has taken her around the world singing in prestigious venues such as the Metropolitan Opera in New York, The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and the Wales Millennium Centre. Rebecca received her Honorary Degree from Swansea in 2000 and retains a close connection to the University.

We caught up with Rebecca to ask her a few questions about Swansea, opera, and its influence on wider culture.

Can you tell us where is all started?

My singing career started in Swansea University at the age of 12, I used to have private singing lessons in the Singleton campus. There was a building, before Taliesin was built, behind the Oceanography department.  I used to have singing lessons there with an amazing baritone every Thursday evening. Amazing stuff.

From the age of 12, did you know you wanted to be an opera singer?

Oh, I knew at the age of four. Because my mother had been an opera singer, so I was surrounded and bathed in classical music in my house. My father adored orchestral music. So, our house was always full of glorious music.  I love all genres of music. But opera really caught my attention.

In your experience, does music transcend cultural barriers? Are there universal emotions or messages that opera can convey to audiences regardless of background?

Well, I think firstly, opera and particularly music is an incredibly portable commodity.

It's accessible. For example, my husband's first ever experience of music was rock and roll. And mine, as well as opera, was the Osmond’s and Abba. So, there are no ‘no-go’ areas for anybody where music is concerned. It's accessible and there for everyone to explore.

There are no cultural barriers, I think, regardless of where you're from you can enjoy music and it can invoke emotions. We all interpret music differently, particularly different audiences and individuals. But overall, in my experience, the emotions messages of opera and of classical music are shared by us all in a very similar way.

As a Welsh singer, do you feel responsibility to celebrate and promote Welsh culture through your work? And if so, how do you do it?

I'm heavily involved in the Welsh Singer's competition. I'm Director of the Welsh Singer's competition. We've got the preliminary rounds in May and the final in October.  The winner of that competition will go forward to represent Wales in Cardiff Singer of the World. So not only am I Director, which means I have an influence on the whole competition, I then mentor whoever wins the competition to go forward to represent Wales.

I'm also director of the Associate Artists programme at the Welsh National Opera, where we have some young singers that come and have a year with the company. And again, I mentor them and prepare them for their roles on stage, give them technical advice and language advice. I think, as someone that's been singing for 35 years, it feels like it's my duty to pass on the baton to the next generation. And it's a responsibility of mine, also, to promote Welsh culture by performing in Wales. I love performing in my natural language, as well as singing in all the various languages that that I sing in. I have private tutor pupils that I love teaching and they're all Welsh, and I give masterclasses, so I'm heavily involved in passing on the baton to the next generation and making sure that the culture continues.

Opera has a rich history that is often intertwined with specific cultures and traditions. How do you balance respecting these traditions with making opera relevant to contemporary audiences?

It certainly does have a rich history! The way that I work is by respecting the art and the purity of the music, being honest to the text and carrying out the direction that is asked of me by the producer and the conductor. I think every audience is contemporary, each performance is viewed with fresh eyes. But it's really the director that reinterprets the story. and keeps it relevant or not. It's genuinely all in his hands, we come into rehearsals with ideas, which can sometimes be thrown out, or embraced, but it’s the director's vision that makes it relevant.

"thankfully, we all perceive voices and productions in different ways, or the
world would be a boring place"

It's also very cyclical, you know, I've been lucky to work with traditional directors such as David McVicar, who is one of the best directors ever. And I've worked in some amazing traditional productions in Munich and in Paris. But, you know, ideas change. And we think we're making them better by making them less traditional.  We went through all the Lipitor Stein productions at Welsh National Opera years ago, and they were minimalist.  Now we have become less minimalist, because I think people are realizing what we want is something that's lovely to watch. I think there's so much ugliness in the world currently, that the last thing we want to do when we sit in a theatre is see more ugliness. We try to appeal to new audiences but what we must be careful of, is that we don't alienate our current audiences that have supported the art form for 20, or 30, or 40 years or all their lives. It's interesting. We all perceive it in a different way, what I would perceive as being an ugly production, someone who else would come out and say, oh, that was so uplifting. It was so modern; it was so current. And I'm thinking, oh, God, I don't see it like that. And yet, you might, or you might see it completely differently. And thankfully, we all perceive voices and productions in different ways, or the world would be a boring place.

Can you tell us about your journey into the world of opera and how your Welsh heritage has influenced your career?

Well, my journey really did start at home. Because I was surrounded by music. It was burning inside me when I was a child. And the choice at school was biology or music. My father said, you must do biology, nobody ever makes a career in music. So, I did biology. But I was singing in the West Glamorgan Youth Choir, and I auditioned for the West Glamorgan Youth Chamber Choir and that's where I met my singing teacher, Jason Sherwood, who worked at Swansea University.

 It was burning inside me, I kept telling my parents I wanted to be a singer. My mother said, “It's a rat race, you don't want to ever be a singer”. So, I said, “Can I just have singing lessons then?”. And in fact, Jason had already written to the teacher in school, saying ‘Rebecca has got to have singing lessons’.  

My father insisted that if I wanted to become a singer, then I would have to also have a career. I thought, ‘Right, what's going to be something that I can do short and sweet to get a qualification?’. I loved science and did science A levels. So, I applied to become a nurse. I was accepted, and I trained in Morriston hospital. Then I specialized in theatre nursing.

During this time, I was singing as an amateur. And one day, the senior nursing officer who was also the conductor of the hospital choir, came up to theatre where I was working. He said, “I understand you're a bit of a singer”. I said “Yes, I am Mr. Thomas” and he said, “Would you like to come and sing in the choir?”, and I said, “No, I wouldn't. I either come as a soloist or not at all.”. So, he said, “Oh, you're a confident little thing, aren't you!”.

So, he suggested that I go to the hospital chapel the following day and bring something to sing with Doreen, the accompanist. So, I took an operatic aria and Summertime from Porgy and Bess; it's a beautiful piece of music. I sang and he nearly fell off his chair! So, I became the soloist for their concert that weekend in Morriston.

Then I met the Morriston Orpheus choir who took me all over the world. And because my reputation was growing, I was invited to sing as a soloist in another concert. That's where I met Sir Bryn Terfel, who asked me what I did. I told him I was just about to have a Theatre Sister post in Morriston. He told me I was a fool, that I needed to go to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, I needed to study with Laura Sarti (she only takes the best), and I needed to do it now! 

So, I wrote that weekend for an application form, I didn't tell my parents and I got an audition. They thought I was going to London to stay with a friend. However, the morning I was about to leave, a good luck postcard arrived from a friend. I came downstairs and my mother was there waiting with the postcard in her hand and said, “What is the meaning of this...?”. My dad, bless him, was going to take me to the station, and she wouldn’t let him, so I had to walk.

So off I went to London and the audition. And the auditioners said, “Well, we're very impressed with you. We'd love you to come and study at the Hilltop.”. I told them that I could only come part time because I was a nurse and loved my job, and my mother didn’t want me to come. They asked if they could ring my mother. I said, “Oh God, no, you can’t ring my mother, because she only discovered this morning that I was auditioning!”. They said they wanted to give me the John Hennessy scholarship, and that I could either come full time, or not at all. What a decision! Well, it wasn't really a decision…I was going.

I got home that evening. My father was in the station carpark waiting for me. I don't know how many hours he'd been there. He didn't speak to me in the car on the way home and he was the most mild, mellow, beautiful man. I'm an only child and I was Daddy's girl. For him not to speak to me, I knew I was in trouble. All he said was, “Your mothers in the front room”. So, I went in, and she said, “Sit down”. So, I sat down. She said, “Well?” and I said, “I was offered a scholarship to study.”. And she said, “Did you accept it?”. I said, “Yes, I did”. And she said, “Oh my darling, I'm so proud of you”.

They came to my debut in Santa Fe in America, they came to the Met, they came to Chicago, San Francisco.  Well, it was the start to it all. But Bryn Terfel and the hospital choir and the Morrison Orpheus choir, they were the catalysts, getting it all going. And I was lucky, and it's been amazing. It's been a 35-year roller coaster, which I still haven't got off. I'm not getting off yet. And I'm loving every moment of it. I've got three new operas still to come this year. And new productions next year. We've got our chamber Festival, which I'm singing in and lots of concerts and we're trying to organise a fundraising concert in Swansea University.

Where's your favourite venue in the world to sing and why?

Do you know I'm going to be honest It's Millennium centre. Every time it's local, my family can be there. I can sleep in my own bed and my own pillows and come home and cuddle my dog and cuddle my husband. And you know, it's amazing. It's the excitement I feel as I step on the stage there, I always feel at home on stage, I probably feel more at home on stage than I do in most everyday situations. The Metropolitan Opera is just incredible, but my second favourite home is the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, where I'm going in the autumn to perform in the Marriage of Figaro. Just looking out at plush red velvet and gold is just something else. I wish you as the audience could see what we see sometimes. It’s just so beautiful.

Each time you perform, you must create a connection with the audience, or the audience creates a connection with you, how does that influence your performance? And does it change your performance a lot?

Massively! The opera that I'm singing in now is a comedy, and I have the funniest character. She’s a dinner lady that morphs into a doctor, back to dinner lady, then morphs into a lawyer and I've got costume changes that are amazing. But you know, when you hear the audience starting to laugh, it absolutely buoys you up and just gives you faith and belief in what you're doing. The audience can have a big impact on a performance.

You've mentioned comedy quite a lot. Is that your favourite genre to perform?

I love tragedies. When I sang the role of Mimi in LA my mother came to watch, and she also came to every local one that I did with the Welsh National Opera, and the Royal Opera House. For my entrance, I knock the door and I walk on stage, and she would burst into tears every time because she knew I would die in Act Four. So, I love tragedy. But comedy is my very favourite. But I love acting. I love the challenge of bringing a character to life. It's just a privilege. And it's such fun.

What advice would you give to aspiring artists who are passionate about preserving and celebrating their cultural heritage through art?

I think all artists, whether they are singers, dancers, artists or writers must be true to themselves. Particularly when they look in the mirror. The artistic talent is turning what you see in the mirror into a window through which an audience can explore or experience a world different to their own. Art is the medium that preserves and celebrates cultural heritage. Go out there and get it. Celebrate your own culture, your own heritage, and sing or act from the depths of your soul and your heart. I don't think you can do more than that.

What advice would you give to somebody going to see an opera for the first time?

I think go with an open mind. Bear in mind, we make life much easier for you now because there are always surtitles. I think if the director has done his job properly, you should see the story unfold in front of you on stage. If you're going to see Gianni Schicchi or La’Boheme or something where the story is unfamiliar, get to your seat five minutes early and read the synopsis.

Music is also available to us on YouTube and all sorts of media these days, have a little listen to some sound bites, and I think you'll learn so much about it. There are different cultures, the colours and textures of opera to be explored. But it's much easier now to go to the opera than it was, and I don't think it's elitist at all. There is nothing elitist about me, I'm a normal person from Pontrhydyfen post office that got where I have through my love of music through a lot of hard work and dedication and passion.  I think going to the rugby is far more expensive than going to the opera, for instance. You'll see 30 players at a rugby match, but you can see up to 200 people on stage at an opera. I think it's much better value for money.

I think some people are afraid of going to the opera. They think it's too high and elitist, But it's not. The music has been around for a long time, it was sung in the fields by peasants. It the foundation for a lot of modern music. I don't think there is a stereotypical opera-goer. It's there for us, and there's something in it for each one of us. You know, try it. It doesn't bite you, just go and give it a go. You might love it. And if you don't love it, there's no need to ever go again.