Catherine Foster born to be a singer
Nov 19 2009 By Christopher Morley
“The Peter Moores Foundation sponsorship enabled me to have a year at the London Opera Studio in 1998/99 and sponsored me for a further month in Pesaro in Italy at the Rossini Festival with Alberto Zedda.”
Catherine’s next move was to Welsh National Opera, as she explains: “In 1997 in Birmingham I entered a competition and was invited by Welsh National Opera to audition for the role of Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Magic Flute.
“I was successful and performed the role in their 1999 production. I also performed this role with Opera Northern Ireland in 1998 and for English National Opera in 2000.
“I had a couple of smaller jobs at WNO after this, and I remember this period as a lot of hard work and disappointments. After many failed auditions it was obvious that I was going to have to do something drastic if I were to follow my dream.
“Eventually I was advised to go to Germany and get a contract singing lead roles in a decent provincial company to gain the experience I needed. So that was it, my mind was made up – it had to be Germany! Not speaking the language, I just photocopied pages and pages of agents’ addresses and tele-phone numbers, as I had no idea who to call, and went home to take my pick!
“I made a CD and then posted off over 100 letters and CDs to agents in Germany. I received about seven answers and then invitations to sing for about five agents, but as it turned out I only needed one and that was the one that for some reason I felt I had to sing for, in Düsseldorf.”
This happened in 2000, when Catherine had just married, and had reached the end of her savings. So it really was Germany or bust. She gives an interesting account of the audition process she went through.
“After the Düsseldorf audition, with the second audition, in Weimar, I got the job on the spot! It’s so hard for singers to prove themselves in an audition as it is such an unreal situation, but for new singers with no work there is no other way. How do you make yourself stand out and not just vocally?
“One thing I did start to do after getting my job in Weimar was to stop wearing black. Everyone wears black. The further I’ve gone in my career, the less the singers wear black, they have found their individualism.
“If black is worn then there is something extra to distinguish that singer, such as a coloured scarf or extravagant jewellery, and that is what I think needs to brought out in an audition, your individualism, for the panel to remember you. Don’t forget, they may be auditioning 20 people or more in one day.”
Whatever went on in Weimar, it obviously worked. Catherine was taken on and has since sung major Verdi, Puccini, Strauss and Wagner roles both there and elsewhere.
And now comes the big one, Brunnhilde, who appears in three of the four Ring operas. Catherine has performed the role in Weimar, as well as in Essen and Hamburg, and her appearance in the Weimar cycle has been preserved on an exciting set of DVDs from ArtHaus Musik.
And amidst all this, Catherine has returned to bringing babies into the world: this time her own one, Gabriella, born in 2003.
