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Self-confident Royal

Carolyn Bartholomew

Wednesday, 9th April 2008

Carolyn Bartholomew meets Kate Royal

Last year Kate Royal made her debut with the Royal Opera House in Thomas Adès’s The Tempest, recorded a cycle of Schumann songs, sang at her third Prom as well as the title role in The Coronation of Poppea at English National Opera. In 2008 she has appeared as Pamina in David McVicar’s production of Die Zauberflöte at the Royal Opera House and is presently on a recital tour of North America with Roger Vignoles; she will take the role of Micaëla in Carmen at Glyndebourne and will sing with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle in Vienna. But she is very cautious about taking on new repertoire recklessly. ‘As a young singer, my voice is changing all the time. It’s easy to forget that you are still training. You never stop training. Being a professional singer in your twenties is young’ — she has been out of college for only three years.

When asked about the future Royal says, ‘I don’t know. I never really expected this. I am very, very lucky to find myself in a career that I absolutely love. I find it almost funny the things I am allowed to do; I am let loose in the Royal Opera House and the Wigmore Hall. I never imagined this. As dreams go, this is it.’

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