Striking the wrong note | 18 July 2019

Every summer for the past six years, Bayreuth has risen to its feet to acclaim an English Brünnhilde. Catherine Foster, from Nottingham, was the heroine of Frank Castorf’s anti-capitalist staging of Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle. The director was booed to the rafters, the singer hailed as saviour. Three perfectionist conductors, Kirill Petrenko, Marek Janowski and Christian Thielemann, insisted on her return each year. Across Europe, Foster commands the roles of Elektra, Isolde, Senta (Flying Dutchman) and Turandot. At 44, she is approaching her vocal prime.

So it is a bit odd to find that no British company has offered her a leading role, or presently plans to do so. Six years of ovations at Bayreuth count for nothing in Blighty. Something has gone fairly rotten in our state-subsidised system if a regnant British soprano cannot get a call from Covent Garden.

I decided to make the call myself, catching Catherine Foster on WhatsApp as she was looking forward to a summer spent cultivating her garden. Bayreuth is resting the Ring and this is her first holiday since 2013. ‘I love my garden,’ she assures me in a mid-Midlands accent that would have set D.H. Lawrence purring. Behind her head I see an artist’s Nottingham treescape, a nostalgic gift from her husband, Robert de Fresnes, who composes TV theme music — Wimbledon, Masterchef; a million miles from his wife’s immolation. Catherine has just sung five Rings in four weeks in Budapest.

Her father was an engineer, her mother a secretary, no music to be heard. ‘My mum can’t sing,’ she laughs. ‘She changes key four times singing “Go To Sleep My Baby”.’ At ten years old Catherine wrote in her diary: ‘Ever since I was three, I knew I am going to be a nurse and a singer.’ She joined Wilford church, near the centre of Nottingham, and was appointed head chorister.