Paul Turner’s impressive Swindon Recital Series has been running for over twenty years, and I was delighted to return to give a recital as part of the Complete season – a programming strand which has included Paul’s performance of the complete Chopin Nocturnes.
Paul and I created a song programme around the idea of heroine and anti-heroines, whose associated repertoire seemed to divide naturally into two kinds of character: those women in charge of their own destiny (Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth, Rosalind and Hermia, Sheherazade, Eliza Doolittle and Harriet Green) and those whose lives are directly affected by Fate in a way that they can’t, or choose not to, resist (The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mary Queen of Scots, Goethe’s Mignon and Julie Jordan). One final heroine is the nameless narrator of Jeremy Nicholas’ charming song, Usherette’s Blues.