SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: Leading opera singer and Croydon resident discusses her love for the music of Felix Mendelssohn in the same historic church where the composer once performed. By DAVID MORGAN
‘I’m not a diva’: Croydon resident Katherine Broderick is one of the country’s leading opera sopranos
“I can’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t singing,” Katherine Broderick says, recalling how her career as an internationally acclaimed opera singer had all started with a very musical version of “show and tell” when she was at primary school.
Growing up in Oldham, one of her infant school teachers recognised her talents. The teacher would get her young pupil to stand up on a desk and sing a song before the class all trooped out for playtime. Years later, Broderick has sung in many of the great concert and theatre venues around the world, delighting audiences with her powerful soprano voice.
Broderick is a child of Irish immigrants. Her father trained as a classical tenor at the Northern College of Music, but it was his love of folk music that inspired his daughter as a young singer. He sang and played guitar in local sessions and at the catholic church where his daughter was often part of the line-up.
Broderick’s voice developed so well that, aged 13, she was accepted into the junior department of the music college her father had attended. She was later offered a place for her undergraduate studies.
Broderick also spent a year studying in Leipzig, at the Felix
Versatile: Broderick has sung in a range of operas, including the Barber of Seville
Hochschule für Musick und Theater, thanks to the Eramus scheme. Her time in the city in eastern Germany brought her to a deep love and appreciation for the music of JS Bach, the composer most associated with the city, as well as that of Felix Mendelssohn.
Broderick now lives in Croydon, and is a frequent visitor to the Minster, where she has sung with the choir at its Easter services. We sit down for a brief chat, and share stories about Mendelssohn, with me telling her that he visited Croydon Parish Church to play the organ in 1832.
She describes how Mendelssohn saved much of Bach’s music, which had been forgotten and neglected, and how his music was banned by the Nazis because of his Jewish heritage.
One of Broderick’s favourite concert roles is singing in Mendelssohn’s oratorio, Elijah.
Broderick first came to London to continue her studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama at the Barbican. It proved to be seminal for Broderick. One week in April 2007 changed her life.
Her singing teacher at the Guildhall suggested that she enter a competition. Not just any competition, but the Kathleen Ferrier Awards, the most prestigious singing competition for opera singers in the country.
Broderick felt that she had nothing to lose and so her hat was thrown into the ring, both operatically and theatrically. The competition was held at London’s prestigious Wigmore Hall. Broderick had never sung there before.
Having reached the final group of six, Broderick completed her programme with the aria, Dich Teure Halle, from Wagner’s opera Tannhäuser.
The judges, chaired by the great English mezzo-soprano, Dame Janet Baker, awarded Broderick first prize. To be presented with the award by Dame Janet herself remains one of Broderick’s most fond memories.
Shortly after winning the Ferrier award, Broderick won the prestigious Gold Medal at the Guildhall. She is proud that her name appears there on the winners’ board alongside such famous musicians as Bryn Terfel the Welsh bass-baritone and Tasmin Little, the violinist.
These wins provided a springboard for Broderick’s career. Not only did the prize money fund her studies but she received many invitations to sing, in this country and abroad. She had her first appearance at The Proms that summer at the Royal Albert Hall, singing the role of Woglinde in a concert version of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung. She has subsequently appeared twice more at The Proms, on one occasion singing Mendelssohn’s Incidental Music to Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Like all professional singers, looking after her voice is vital. “If a string breaks, as a violinist you can get another one. If your reed wears out as a clarinetist, you can replace it. But your voice is part of you, and you sing with your whole body.”
Self-discipline is important, too. Both caffeine and alcohol have an adverse effect on the vocal cords. Picking up a cough or cold can affect the voice. Broderick is nervous to the point of changing her seat on public transport if she finds herself close to someone who coughs or sneezes.
Broderick caught whooping cough not so long ago and she couldn’t sing for three months. “It was the worst time of my professional career, not being able to sing for that length of time,” she says.
Rare performance: to look after her voice, Broderick rations the live productions she appears in each year
While she was sidelined from her singing, she went through a time of reflection. “Not being able to sing, I began to think, ‘Who am I? What am I if you take away my voice?’”
She had had those existential thoughts during the covid lockdown, too. She had her voice then, but had nowhere to sing.
She thoroughly enjoyed her first role back after her illness, appearing as Santuzza in Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana with the Blackheath Community Opera earlier this year.
“This was a great project,” she tells me. “Professional soloists work together with amateur musicians in the chorus and the orchestra. They were truly inclusive performances as autistic students from local schools, Charlton Park Academy and Greenvale also took part.”
Even when she had recovered, Broderick still had a fear nagging away that her voice wouldn’t respond in exactly the way she wanted. Slowly, she regained her self-confidence, her voice is as good as ever and she is back, singing divinely and doing what she loves.
“I am very lucky in that I am able to make a living doing something which I love. Many people never have that opportunity.”
On stage, Broderick enjoys doing things which she would never do in real life, or only in moderation!
“I can behave badly, I can have tantrums, I can be rude, I can be silly. Audiences might think I am an extrovert, but I am only performing in character.” She laughs loudly when she describes how much fun she had on stage over the years, including being in a bath with very little in the way of clothing.
The she adds, “Off stage I am quite the introvert.”
Broderick is keen, though, to avoid the stereotype of the female opera singer. “I am definitely not a diva,” she assures me.
“I enjoy playing the roles of women who are doing their best, often in very difficult circumstances. These are not princesses or queens, but often complex women caught up in a family saga and who are exposed in their vulnerability. These are the sort of roles in which I excel, I think.”
Perhaps her most famous role is as Brünnhilde in Wagner’s Ring Cycle, his mammoth work consisting of four operas: Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. Broderick first sang the role of Brünnhilde with Opera North.
Singer and mum: Katherine Broderick
In this country she has sung at Glyndebourne, Garsington, the Royal Opera House and The Coliseum in London, where she was an English National Opera Young Artist.
In Europe she has graced the stage at Opera National de Paris, Opera Comique Paris, Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, Oper Leipzig, Opera Berlioz de Montpellier, Opera National de Lorraine and Staattheater Klagenfurt, where she returns next summer to make her debut as Isolde in Wagner’s epic opera Tristan and Isolde.
As a recording artist she is in high demand. Among her many recordings are Benjamin Britten’s Turn of the Screw with the LSO and Richard Farnes; French Chamber Songs with James Bailleau, for Champs Hill records and Mendelssohn’s Leider with Eugene Asti for Hyperion records.
Juggling life as a professional singer and a mum has been a challenge. Like all creative female talents, Broderick worried about turning down roles because she wanted to be a good mum. She feels she has a good balance now, committing to one major operatic production a year, which she combines with concert and recording work to pay the bills and enable her to have plenty of time at her home in Croydon as well.
Nowadays, Broderick likes to relax by singing Joni Mitchell songs. Being musical with every fibre of her body, she plays the piano, the flute and has a dulcimer and ukelele to hand as well.
Any chance of opera coming to Fairfield Halls? She could walk to work.
David Morgan, pictured, is a former Croydon headteacher, now the volunteer education officer at Croydon Minster, who offers tours or illustrated talks on the history around the Minster for local community groups
If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page
Some previous articles by David Morgan:
- Ghostly convocation that is hardly a good omen for the Palace
- Murder mystery lingers around crimes of the Borough Poisoner
- Dr Warder’s book The True Amazons made him the bee’s knees
- The church fire that consumed a thousand years of history
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
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