Swapping stages: Dame Flott goes to the theatre

Congratulations on your forthcoming role in the National Theatre’s revival of their production of Follies: am I right in thinking that this will be your first foray into ‘theatre’ as distinct from opera?

Yes! I got close with operetta in Paris: we did Offenbach’s La belle Hélène and La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein, ages ago now – and I did quite a bit of Viennese operetta: The Merry Widow and Fledermaus, but this will be very different.

Which role will you be playing?

I’m playing Heidi, the elderly Viennese singer, and I just have one wonderful song to sing: One More Kiss, which is beautiful.

Did you see this production the first time round, last year?

Yes but unfortunately I saw it in our local cinema, which doesn’t really exist! It’s just a little theatre where they put on films occasionally, and we didn’t realise how popular it was going to be, so my husband and I were the last in and had to sit in the front row. We saw it practically horizontal, and a bit close! But I thought it was a brilliant production and Jo [Josephine Barstow, as Heidi] was amazing.

Obviously there are all sorts of aspects of this kind of work that differ from what you’ve done before: how are you feeling about the process?

Follies at the National Theatre © Johan Persson

… Curious. I’ve always been very much in awe of actors, I think we have such a lot of the work done for us with the composer having set the words to music. If you get just the text, it’s up to you how you do it, and that is more challenge than I can quite cope with, so I’m very glad that Mr Sondheim set his brilliant words to beautiful music!I had to use my speaking voice in performance in September: I was the narrator in Le martyre de Saint Sébastien. It was in French, and I tripped over my dress and fell flat on my face just before I went on the stage, which didn’t help. And then I had to do the first bit of the introduction – just telling everybody to shut up and listen to this story, basically – from way up at the back behind the orchestra, and then walk all the way down in full view of everyone. It was in the Philharmonie in Berlin, which is a fantastic concert hall, but huge, and I was just trying not to fall down again. I think I wasn’t so nervous about the actual performance after I’d managed to negotiate the stairs!

Follies is seven shows a week, so this is a completely new thing for me: though of course I’m sure I can sing every day the amount I’ve got to.I think it will be very good for me: it will get me into some kind of a routine, which I’ve never had really as a freelance singer. It will be great to do something again and again for a bit, rather than desperately trying to learn something new for the day after tomorrow, which is what seems to have happened all my life. It should be – not restful – but quite a nice experience just to be able to find a new way of doing it. Everybody’s performances will be different every night, I’m sure, and I can work on my backstory – I’ll get to know where this lady came from!

Heidi sings alongside a younger version of herself, have you met your younger you?

No, I haven’t met anybody yet – I still can’t really believe it’s happening, but since I have now been measured for a costume and for a wig it must be real!

Follies at the National Theatre © Johan Persson

In a way, the show isn’t fully focused on narrative, it’s more a series of moments in which a collection of once-young and beautiful people contemplate their autumn years, and face the realities of their lives. As a performer, like Heidi, with a long career behind you already, how much does your philosophy coincide with hers?

“Never look back”, that’s what she says – and no, I don’t look back very much. I published a book, with a French journalist, about my life a couple of years ago – and that does make you look back, of course, but most of the time I’m just thinking about what I’m doing next. I think it would be jolly difficult if I didn’t have something to do next, I can’t imagine just sitting around, or planting things and waiting for them to grow…

That’s a very scary prospect in any freelance career!

Yes! At the moment I’m doing a bit more in the way of teaching and coaching, which I was very scared of originally, because I felt I never knew anything well enough. I still feel the same, but I’ve realised that doesn’t really matter – that isn’t quite the point. One can communicate something, and contribute something to help similarly-unsure but younger people. I remember when I was just beginning as a singer, it was the first time I’d sung in the Festival Hall, in an Ernest Read concert – way, way back in the ‘70s. It was the Serenade to Music by Vaughan Williams, and the violinist who led the orchestra was a professor at the Royal Academy of Music where I was a student. He was so nervous, because he had this lovely big solo to play, and I found it quite comforting to see this man, who was a teacher, who was still nervous. I’ve always been a quaking heap before everything, and I still am! But then one had, in a way, less to prove as a beginner – nobody knows who you are. Once they do know who you are, then it gets a bit scary, because you have to try not to let them down – or yourself!

Expectation is a terrifying thing.

Yes, exactly, and it’s going to be difficult following Jo Barstow in this piece because she was wonderful. But I shall do my best, as long as I don’t fall down the stairs!

Once you’ve broken in to musical theatre with Follies, are there other musicals, by Sondheim or otherwise, that you’ve a hankering to perform in?

Oh gosh, I mean, I love them: a few years ago we did a staged recital, mise-en-scène by Laurent Pelly – it was an 80 minute recital with a dancer and a string quartet and various different kinds of music. I sang Losing My Mind [also from Follies] which I’d always wanted to sing, I think it’s the most glorious song. I also used to do quite a lot of recitals with Sir Thomas Allen and we did bits and pieces from Carousel. He used to do the monologue that Gerald Finlay did at the Last Night of the Proms this year – which is so beautiful – about ‘My Boy Bill’, and we used to do duets from that and from Brigadoon. But I don’t know about actually being in a show, I think I might have left that a bit late: unless there are any antique characters…

There’s Desiree Armfeldt in A Little Night Music, perhaps! But what have you in fact got lined up for after Follies?

Well I’m on a couple of juries: I’m going to Lyon to be on a chamber music jury, and I’m on the Wigmore Song Prize jury.

At the end of October 2018 I’m in the South of France for a week to do masterclasses on Mozart, on Da Ponte operas, working with some super young singers down there, so that’ll be lovely. It’s very rejuvenating to work with young singers.

And, I’m going to Garmish- Partenkirchen next June which is where Strauss lived. Richard Strauss has been a huge part of my life. I would have retired years ago probably, if it hadn’t been for Strauss and all his amazing music, and opera ladies who I’ve been lucky enough to perform. I’m going to do a masterclass there on Strauss singing, which is a bit cheeky really for a Brit, but very nice to be asked, I must say: I’m really excited actually!

Sarah Lambie is an actress, singer, teacher, editor and writer. She is editor of Teaching Drama, Head of Content for drama at the Music & Drama Education Expo, and cofounder of Golem Theatre