Katherine Jenkins
Katherine Jenkins
Posted: 08 Mar 2010
Katherine Jenkins, Newcastle Metro Radio Arena, 6 March 2010
Store away the ball gowns and put the classical arias on hold – Katherine Jenkins has added another spectacular string to her bow.
The mezzo soprano who has taken classical crossover to new levels in her six-year career has crossed over again – but this time in a very different way.
For the 29-year-old from South Wales is taking away the breath of Arena audiences across Britain with a remarkable new show owing as much to daring choreography and dramatic effects as the vocal perfection she has been producing since the first of her seven best-selling albums hit the shelves in 2003.
Singing faultlessly , for example, while hanging upside-down from a high rope in the hold of a muscular acrobat; singing, too, from precarious footholds on a series of stage sets brilliantly devised and worked by Creative Director and Choreographer Kim Gavin, and backed all the way by an imaginative troupe of dancers, Maria Callas this most definitely is not.
The girl-next-door image of Jenkins’ early days has given way to a glamorous queen of the stage afraid of nothing and as confident in her ability as any leading star.
Since breaking out of the confines of sculptured classical singing on stage two years ago with the smash-hit song-and-dance act Viva La Diva alongside prima ballerina Darcey Bussell, Jenkins has produced her seventh album, Believe, from across the pond in America; and Believe is what she does – believing totally in her own ability to transcend new barriers.
Long-term devotees of this shining talent were perhaps taken aback by the style and ambition of such a theatrical concert in which Jenkins’ shimmering tones were built into scenes of vibrant dance and movement. But they recovered breath to deliver a thunderous standing ovation to the entire cast, which included the instrumental four-girl support group Escala.
Jenkins has long spoken of another possible career path – the world of opera which, she believes, requires the carefully-developed maturity of a voice beyond 30 years old.
This rare, multi-talented performer turns 30 in June and has every prospect of achieving that as well as any other dream she cares to live.
For this girl from the Valleys is no longer merely a classical singer – she is also a class act.
Richard Wall
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