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Lesley Garrett (born 10 April 1955) is an English soprano singer, musician, broadcaster and media personality who is noted for being at home in opera and "crossover music".
Garrett has performed across the world, in countries throughout Europe, and also the United States, Australia, Russia, Brazil, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan and South Korea. She has also sung opera and pop classics with Bryan Ferry, Eurythmics and Mick Hucknall to celebrate the arrival of the new century on Millennium Eve in the grounds at the Royal Observatory and National Maritime Museum.
She played the lead role of Hanna Glawari in the Welsh National Opera's production of The Merry Widow, which toured the United Kingdom in 2005. In 2006, she sang the role of Mother Abbess in Andrew Lloyd Webber's revival of The Sound of Music. In 2008, she joined the cast of Carousel as Nettie Fowler. The production toured the UK and then transferred to the West End's Savoy Theatre. In 2013, she returned to opera with the monodrama La Voix humaine for Opera North.
She created the role of Val in Pleasure, the first opera by Mark Simpson, directed by Tim Albery and premiered at the Howard Assembly Room by Opera North, in April 2016.Martin Dreyer. Report from Leeds. Opera, July 2016, Vol 67 No. 7, p895-897.
Garrett is a member of the board of the English National Opera and a vice president of Harrogate International Festivals.
In 2002, Garrett was appointed a CBE for her services to music. She was also awarded with a BASCA Gold Badge Award in October 2010, in recognition of her contribution to music.
She also sang the British national anthem on the Champs-Élysées in Paris in 2012 after Bradley Wiggins became the first Briton to win the Tour de France, though her performance was not universally appreciated.
On Christmas Day 2004, BBC Two broadcast Lesley Garrett – Music from the Movies, co-starring her with Ruthie Henshall, Michael McCarthy with the backing of the Opera North orchestra. The programme was recorded at the Opera In The Park concert which had taken place in the grounds of Temple Newsam, West Yorkshire on 19 July 2003.
In February 2005, Garrett was selected to be one of the judges for BBC's Comic Relief does Fame Academy, and in May she hosted and sang at the 2005 Classical BRIT Awards at the Royal Albert Hall on ITV. She was a regular panellist on the ITV daytime show Loose Women during 2006; she featured there again in 2009 and 2010, before returning in May 2014. Garrett also appeared on This Morning and Loose Women in 2007, to perform a song from her latest album When I Fall in Love. She also continued the post as a judge on Comic Relief Does Fame Academy in 2007.[2] She currently presents a show on the British classical radio station Classic FM.
From February 2008, Garrett presented the show Lesley Garrett's 20 Operas to See Before You Die on Sky Arts.[3]
Over four weeks, beginning on 30 November 2008, she presented the Sunday morning BBC1 programme Christmas Voices.[4]
In November 2010, she joined a long line of panellists on Five's The Wright Stuff.
Along with Larry Lamb, Garrett presented a short BBC series entitled When Royals Wed to celebrate the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton in April 2011.
On 30 May 2014, she made her return to the ITV daytime show Loose Women. It was announced on the programme that she would become a regular panellist again.
She featured on the TV show My Life on a Plate on 10 September 2017; chef Brian Turner accompanied her on a trip to key locations from her childhood in Yorkshire, where she was taught by her parents to make the most out of what was available. The chef then created two dishes that wove nostalgia and the taste of home together.
Garrett created the role of Cathy in the London studio recording of Bernard J. Taylor's operatic version of Wuthering Heights, which also featured Dave Willetts, Bonnie Langford and other leading British musical theatre performers. Her rendition of "I Belong to the Earth" was included on two of her solo albums.
Other recordings include complete audio operas: Mozart's The Magic Flute (Papagena) conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras, Mozart's Così fan tutte (Despina), also conducted by Mackerras and Yum-Yum in the audio and video recordings of the Jonathan Miller production of The Mikado from ENO, in which she played the leading soprano role, Yum-Yum. She appears on two other DVDs of complete works from English National Opera, Handel's Ariodante (Dalinda) and Xerxes (Atalanta). In the video of the 1984 Glyndebourne L'incoronazione di Poppea under Raymond Leppard, she sings Nutrice and Valletto.
Garrett's only credit on a hit single was on a version of "Ave Maria", which she performed with leukaemia sufferer Amanda Thompson for the television programme Hearts of Gold, which reached no. 16 in the UK singles chart at the end of November 1993.
* Reprint of Notes From a Small Soprano with few edits. Also the title of some copies of the audiobook.
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