A soprano who likes to tell a dramatic story

One of the opera world’s rising dramatic sopranos, Elaine McKrill, is no stranger to Oxford. Just over 20 years ago, while still a student at the Royal Academy of Music, she gave audiences a taste of things to come with a performance of Elettra in Mozart’s Idomineo with the Oxford University Opera Club. More recently, she appeared at the Sheldonian Theatre with the Oxford Philomusica, singing one of her favourite roles, that of Brünnhilde in Die Walküre.

Now she is back, this time performing Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs with the Oxford Chamber Orchestra, and she is relishing the prospect.

“I’ve done the songs with about four different orchestras so far, and they are just beautiful,” she says. “There are not many sets of songs that work so well in a concert setting. They last around 20 minutes, and they’re wonderful in the way that they depict such varying emotions.

“I like to be able to tell a story, and the Strauss songs are so beautifully written, the sounds are so at one with the poetry, and it all comes together so well. It’s fantastic musical writing. Also, it’s poetry that can mean something different for everybody.

"I like the fact that two people in a concert can be touched by them in a different way. That’s the wonder of live music.”

Elaine was bitten by the music bug early on. Born and brought up in Herefordshire, she was lucky enough to have a teacher who recognised her talent and steered her in the right direction.

“I had a fantastic head of music, Joyce Backhouse, who encouraged me to take part in music. I played the violin in the school orchestra, and I sang in the school choir, and often sang solos. She also used to put on Gilbert and Sullivan operas, and I often had a role in those. “The next stage was wanting to go to university, and it was her advice to consider one of the music colleges. So I applied to the Royal Academy of Music, and was accepted. I didn’t really know what was involved — I was just a country girl — but I decided to move to London, which was a lot different to Cardiff, which I had been thinking of going to.”

Elaine admits that she had a slow start at the RAM, as her voice seemed much less mature than those of other undergraduates, something that seems incredible now to anyone who has heard her singing any of the Wagner roles for which she is best known.

“I was an undergraduate for four years, and then my voice started to develop,” she recalls. “People were starting to say that I should be singing opera, and so I did two years on the opera course.

"I owe a lot to Joyce Backhouse. Without her guidance I would have drifted into university and probably wouldn’t have thought of going to music college and pursuing an operatic career.”

Elaine’s Wagnerian career came about quite by chance, while she was living in Australia for a few years during the 1990s.

“I got to work with good teachers while I was out there, and one of them suggested trying Elizabeth’s aria from Tannhäuser. When I left England I wasn’t quite sure what I was good at, but I seemed to be able to do Wagner, even on a bad day!”

While in Australia, Elaine sang Second Norn in Götterdämmerung and Siegrune in Die Walküre with State Opera South Australia, which effectively launched her as a Wagnerian singer.

“When I returned to England, I had to try and reinvent myself, and re-establish myself as a freelance singer, so I reinvented myself singing Wagner.”

That reinvention soon paid off. Offers of work came in from the Newbury and Covent Garden festivals, English Pocket Opera and Longborough Festival Opera, among others, as well as a number of concert performances. Then she was offered understudy roles with Scottish Opera and English National Opera, and was soon adopting those roles as her own. She has since sung Wagner roles at Covent Garden and various venues throughout Europe. Currently working at Glyndebourne, she is looking forward to making her debut as Isolde at Dijon, France, next summer, a role she has so far only sung in concert.

“My major focus, at the moment, is learning this new role. The opera’s five hours long and Isolde is onstage for most of Act 1 and Act 2. So it takes a lot of preparation and there’s thousands of German words to learn! It’s the most exciting thing happening in my career.”

Elaine will be singing Strauss’s Four Last Songs with the Oxford Chamber Orchestra at the Town Hall, Oxford, on Saturday, November 1. The concert also includes Rossini’s William Tell Overture and Saint-Saëns’ Symphony No.3 in C minor (the ‘Organ’ symphony). The conductor is Catherine Underwood; organ soloist is Julian McNamara. For tickets, call 01865 305305, or visit www.ticketsoxford@oxfordplayhouse.com. For more information about Elaine McKrill, visit www.elainemckrill.com