Welsh contralto to sing in Chch

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32461, 23 November 1970, Page 6

Welsh contralto to sing in Chch

It is a well-worn assumption that the Welsh, like the Maoris, have a head start on others when it comes to singing. The Welshborn contralto, Helen Watts, is agreed that natural talent abounds in her home country.

But she considers the necessary discipline required to become a first-rate professional is often lacking. “In Wales, we love to sing —■just for enjoyment—but that sort of attitude does not lead to the top,” said Miss Watts in Christchurch yesterday. After natural talent, selfdiscipline is first on her list of attributes necessary for success. “Discipline, determination, the ability to come on smiling whatever.” Her own rise to recognition was not "meteoric.” She had to "do things the hard way" —the best way,- she considers, to learn the profession. Since the early 19605, Miss Watts has been increasingly in demand in Britain, Europe, •nd North America. This is her first visit to New Zealand. On Wednesday and Thursday evening, she will take part in the ChristChurch Harmonic Society’s performances of Handel’s "Messiah” Single-mindedness Her single-mindedness—“l like to do what I’m doing thoroughly”—plus the encouragement of her family have urged her on. But along with successes, there have been a "fair share” of dial appointments. "Once, many years ago. I auditioned for the 8.8. C., and failed,” she said. “They did not tell me why, and so I wrote and asked. The director of music .replied that although I was musical he did not think I had a good enough voice to make it. In view of the fact that he had not heard me, I became even more determined.” Years later, Miss Watts showed him the letter. “He laughed, and had the grace to apologise,” she said. Bom in Pembrokeshire, where her father was a chemist, Miss Watts grew up in the coastal countryside. Her early memories are of long walks in the woods. Now, she has a home in central London, and has discovered a love of gardening. Her brother, a fine boy soprano, was then considered the really musical one in a musically-orientated family. But music really became a serious factor in her life when she went to boarding school in Staffordshire.

“Our musical director was very good, and then suddenly it all jelled— I realised music was really very important to me," Miss Watts said.

From then on, music became dominant An earlier enthusiasm for sport vanished. “Perhaps I should be more interested, then I would not get so fat,” she laughed. After four years at the Royal Academy of Music, where she won several

awards, Miss Watts con tinued her studies with Frederick Jackson. Her professional career began with broadcasts on the Welsh Home Service of the 8.8. C. The programmes she likes best are those which are not confined to an intellectual approach, but “cover all the emotions.” “Even people who do not know a great deal of music can get plenty of enjoyment out of oratorio, and other things. German Heder, for instance. Often I get the feeling the audience is there to be educated, they seem to be afraid of it But you can have humour there, too,” Miss Watts said. She has sung in “Messiah” more often than she can remember. But unlike some recent critics of this nowannual Christmas event, she does not believe it is performed too often.