Notes from a Small Soprano Book

I don't come just from a musical family, but from a musical community. The musical heritage of Yorkshire is deep and wide. This was a land of smoke and fire, coal, steel and sweat. The community that underpinned my upbringing was born from the pits and the steelworks and the railways. And woven into the fabric of this harsh existence was music. Lesley Garrett, one of Britain's best-known opera singers, charts her rise to fame and fortune in her wry and engaging autobiography Notes From a Small Soprano (the title refers to her five foot four inch stature). Garrett grew up as part of a close-knit family in South Yorkshire, with a rich and comfortable musical heritage--"the old upright piano was, more than anything, the focus of our family"; "music to us was like food and air"--though it was a performance of Puccini's Madam Butterfly that really whetted her appetite to sing herself. An early taste for the stage arose when she undertook the part of Eliza in a school production of My Fair Lady; Garrett's next move was to train at London's Royal Academy of Music. Years of hard work ensued (at one point she was working as an artists's model to support herself), as well as an early marriage break-up and ill-health, but Garrett's talent and determination won through. Now a top-selling diva with a successful recording career and television work, she has balanced both the critical and commercial aspects of her career, and blossomed in her second marriage and motherhood. Above all, her commitment to her family and background shines through--she was inspired to write Notes From a Small Soprano after the death of her beloved grandmother, the forthright result being "not so much the story of where I have been but where I came from". --Kate WeaverRead More