The rise and rise of Big Voice

and triumphs of an opera singer's life

DIVAS don't come from Lincoln, do they? When you offer this theory to

the soprano Jane Eaglen, she roars with jolly laughter and says she

knows exactly what you mean. Her own family still can't quite believe

it. ''I think they thought and maybe even still think, opera singers

don't come from people like us.'' But then, adds Eaglen, she is not a

very typical opera singer, ''partly because of my background, which is

very ordinary, and partly because of the person I am''.

That person is quite simply ''not neurotic''. Not that all opera

singers are a bag of nerves, but they do have that sort of reputation,

says Eaglen. ''I am not one of those temperamental types. I am not a

Maria Callas, whom, incidentally, I worship and adore. But I don't worry

myself sick about getting colds and go around wrapping myself in

cottonwool. You can't be silly about these things because that would

ruin your life. Some singers just sit at home and fret, but what's the

point? You can't stop living because of what you do. There are only a

certain number of top C's in your life and when they have gone, they

have gone.

''I inhale a bit of steam sometimes if I'm sitting watching the telly

at home and that's about it really.'' And there you were thinking that a

glorious colaratura voice like Eaglen's was probably carefully preserved

and pickled with daily gargles of nectar and honey and champagne. For

there is gold in them there tonsils. But, no, the day we meet, she has

just done a lunch and listen session with the Friends of Scottish Opera,

talking wisely, warmly, and wittily about her forthcoming debut with the

company in the title role of Bellini's Norma. And now here we are

sharing a cheese bun and coffee, and Britain's leading, young dramatic

soprano is still talking the hind leg off the proverbial donkey.

Jane Eaglen, 32-years-old and big and bonny, is in possession of a big

and bonny pair of lungs with matching vocal cords. She is down-to-earth,

great fun to talk to and seems to have her head screwed on pretty

firmly. When you remark on this, she jokes, yes, and she even bears the

scar where they screwed it back on again. Eighteen months ago, just as

Eaglen was about to open as Brunnhilde in Scottish Opera's Ring Cycle,

she discovered a lump on her thyroid gland. After various tests and

X-rays, the Glasgow specialist, knowing full well that she was an opera

singer, announced flatly, ''Yes, well, there is a lump on your thyroid,

it's very hard, therefore there's a 50% chance it could be cancer; it

will have to be taken out and there's a 20% chance you'll never speak

again, let alone sing. It's nice to have met you, thank you, and

goodbye''.

That was, without question, the worst moment of her life, says Eaglen.

''It was a dreadful shock. But I pulled myself together, and I thought,

well, this has got to be faced. I was eventually seen at St Bart's in

London by a surgeon who told me that there was only a 5% chance of the

operation damaging my voice, but I had no choice other than to go ahead

with the operation, particularly as they thought it was malignant.

''It was not pleasant and I was very, very ill for about three months

afterwards. Yes, it was scarey, but I am a very philosophical person and

it does make you realise you can't take it all for granted. Although I

knew everything was all right immediately I woke up from the

anaesthetic, with a drip in my arm, a drain on my neck and 17 staples in

my throat. As soon as I could walk I was off to the privacy of the

bathroom for a quick hum just to make sure I could still sing. And I

must say, now I am actually quite proud of my scar,'' she says.

Born and educated in Lincoln, Eaglen was virtually an only child. She

has one brother who is 17 years her senior and her father died when she

was 10. A neighbour who had a piano encouraged her to play because it

was thought she might be musical, although she recalls first standing on

a stage at the age of three at a Sunday School anniversary reciting a

poem called The Daisy. ''I remember thinking, this is fine and not being

the least bit worried about performing in public. I went through a phase

after that of actually being physically sick before getting up on a

platform. Nowadays I just get really excited before an opening night,

and the adrenalin and the butterflies in the tummy go mad. But, oh, the

thrill of it! The big entrances, the big arias, the big frocks!

Brilliant!''

Although her family is not at all musical, Eaglen was eventually

encouraged to take singing lessons. ''I think my piano teacher thought

there was a voice in there. I had done lots of things at school and with

the Methodist church I suppose because even then I only did tunes. But I

have no idea where it came from; it's a God-given talent. But I was

terribly naive. When my teacher suggested singing lessons, I thought,

lessons? Surely you just stand up and sing? But off I went for my

lessons in Grantham every Saturday, 30 miles away, an hour-and-a-half

there and an hour-and-a-half back. Suddenly, I realised, gosh, I really

love doing this. But I was actually 18 before I even saw an opera. I

remember it was Madame Butterfly.

''There was so much more to singing than I had ever realised and I

found it utterly fascinating. When I auditioned at the Royal Northern

College, Joseph Ward who has been my only teacher'' -- recently Eaglen

flew out to Australia for a two-week lesson with her mentor --

''auditioned me and he says he knew at once there was definitely a voice

in there just waiting to be let out. He has been a real father figure to

me. He nurtured me and pointed me in all the right directions, working

me technically until the voice was ready to happen.'' And what a voice

it is, matched only, as Conrad Wilson noted in The Herald this week, by

Eaglen's imposing figure and dominating stage presence.

SHE SAYS she always hoped she'd be a dramatic soprano, riding those

tempestuous rollercoaster emotions that are the operatic heroine's

birthright. ''There is just something in the music that appeals to me,

so I always knew I'd play Brunnhilde and Norma, for instance. I find

such parts the easiest to sing because I feel I can actually use my

voice to its full range and really express my feelings. I believe in

playing these characters as real women who are experiencing real

emotions. Norma is wonderful, she is a woman, a high priestess, and a

very strong character who rules by being quite a volatile personality.

''It's great to stomp around a stage and shout at people; it's

fantastic. I love it, I'd much rather be a baddie than a goodie;

unfortunately, there aren't many baddies around for sopranos -- they are

nearly all heroines who go around drinking poison out of rings and

having some stupid death at the end. Not Norma! She dies, but it's

pretty passionate stuff. Yes, give me somebody with a bit of spirit.

That really suits me, Jane. But I do tend to cut off, if I'm thinking,

'you stupid woman! why are you doing this?' I find all that stuff really

hard to relate to, not being the slightest bit simpering myself. Give me

women with spirit, then I can say, 'good on you, get stuck in there,

missus'.''

If Eaglen herself can be highly critical of opera's less politically

correct heroines, then she too has often been the target for the slings

and arrows of outrageous criticism. Before we met I re-read some of the

reviews she received for her Tosca in the ENO production directed by

Jonathan Miller, not one of Eaglen's happiest stage experiences.

Basically, the critics reviewed her wig and her clothes. ''Miss Eaglen's

plump English dowdiness utterly defeated the production team,'' quoth

the Guardian.

At the dress rehearsal, says Eaglen, she looked like a bag lady. ''For

two months I talked to the designer and then you find nobody has

listened to you. I mean a designer is not a designer if he can only make

someone who is 5ft 2in and a size 10 look good. I looked awful, so the

critics said Miller shouldn't have had Jane Eaglen singing Tosca,

although it's a great role for me to sing and I have even sung it in

Italy where nobody bothers about your size, just so long as you can

sing. No-one would write so-and-so shouldn't be singing Tosca because

she is ugly, yet they feel free to comment on my size. I just feel it's

a pity they are so small-minded. In Italy they just want you to sing

your heart out and they also make you look sensational. And providing

you are fit and healthy and can move properly, that's what counts.''

Happily, there will be another Tosca in Argentina later this year, as

well as a Donna Anna at the Vienna State Opera, a Lady Macbeth in

Houston, another Brunnhilde in Vienna, Chicago and London, and her debut

at the Bastille in Paris with Flying Dutchman.

''There are certain roles I wouldn't do because of my size --

Violetta, for instance, but then I wouldn't want to sing her, she's not

right either vocally or mentally for me -- but most roles for a dramatic

soprano are written for a big voice and they should be sung. There are

far too many people not doing just that in my opinion. I certainly don't

agree with singers just standing and singing. You have to have the drama

of it, but I do think it is a shame that in the last few years the least

important thing about opera is the singing. It has been about producers

and bizarre sets and gimmicky interpretations, but it's the music and

the singing that matter.''

While Eaglen is delighted that opera has become more accessible to the

masses in recent years, she personally is not into the glossy marketing

that some of the younger opera divettes have been subjected to recently

in this age of the musical power-dresser. Vanity Fair, for instance, has

devoted five pages to gorgeous pouting Cecile Bartoli and Leslie Garrett

is frequently to be found adopting Madonnaesque poses across pieces of

post-modern furniture and has even been plastered all over the London

Underground on posters in photographs which she herself describes as

''all tits and chiffon''.

''Sex and opera? Well, I have to be careful what I say about this,''

replies Eaglen, ''although at the end of the day anything that gets

people interested in opera who wouldn't normally be can only be good.

However, I do think it gives people some very false ideas of what opera

is actually about. Which is singing.''

Jane Eaglen offers to drive me back to the office as the interview

ends. Think about it, Whitney Houston (another of her heroines of whom

she does no mean impression, indeed her 14-month-old godson thinks Jane

Eaglen is Whitney Houston) or Dame Joan Sutherland chauffeuring a mere

hack back to her desk . . .

* Scottish Opera's production of Norma opens at the Theatre Royal,

Glasgow on Wednesday.