kathleen ferrier
contralto
APRIL 22nd, 1912

Upon the shock announcement of her untimely death whilst at the height of her career in 1953, British contralto Kathleen Ferrier, was considered the most popular lady in Britain after the Queen. To this day the mention of her name garners great admiration and reverence amongst opera aficionados.

Ferrier grew up in the household of a school headmaster father. Her mother also possessed a strong contralto voice. Her musical aptitude was recognised at an early age, and she won awards and prizes for her piano playing, but at this stage her voice was not considered anything remarkable.^[1] When her father retired, the family were not able to afford to send her to attend music college.

On Ferrier’s career up to this point, the music biographer Humphrey Burton wrote in 1988: ‘For more than a decade, when she should have been studying music with the best teachers, learning English literature, and foreign languages, acquiring stage craft and movement skills, and travelling to London regularly to see opera, Miss Ferrier was actually answering the telephone, getting married to a bank manager and winning tinpot competitions for her piano-playing.’^[2]

But she was destined to receive much greater accolades and fame far from her initial success and become a living legend of her time with her contemporaries such as Marian Anderson claiming, ‘My God, what a voice — and what a face!’^[3] In Vienna, the soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was Ferrier’s co-soloist in a recorded performance of Bach’s Mass in B minor, with the Vienna Symphony under Herbert von Karajan. Schwarzkopf later recalled Ferrier’s singing of the Agnus Dei from the Mass as her highlight of the year. ^[4]

Luckily her voice is well documented in recordings of her repertoire extending from folksong and popular ballads to the classical works of Bach, Brahms, Mahler and Elgar. She created the role of Lucretia in Benjamin Britten’s ‘The Rape of Lucretia’ at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival in 1946, and followed with Orfeo in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Eurydice. These are the only operatic roles she chose to sing, though she performed operatic arias such as Adieu Fôrets from Tchaikovsky which she  performed in recital settings. ^[5]

To appreciate the beauty of her voice listen to her Ombra Mai Fu by Handel or the unaccompanied Northumbrian folk song Blow the Wind Southerly.

Sadly she finally succumbed to her breast cancer diagnosis despite working through radiation treatments and previous mastectomy, even stoically finishing what was to be her last ever stage appearance, when the femur of her leg gave way during the performance due to her effects of the radiation treatment. The audience was never aware of her condition.^[6]

She passed away not long afterwards and to this day it is still speculated as to how her career could have been even greater if she had lived longer. On the final page of Neville Cardus’ compilation of memoirs, after all the lists of recordings, there is a final last observation which simply states, ‘It is tragic that no recording exists of Kathleen Ferrier’s singing of the Angel in The Dream of Gerontius.^[7]

Ferrier was awarded the CBE in 1953 and a prestigious singing competition the Kathleen Ferrier Awards is held each April in the United Kingdom open to British and International singers under the age of 28 who have already completed a year of study in UK or the Republic of Ireland, to help further their studies as a legacy to her memory.

^[1] CARDUS, NEVILLE. THE GIRL FROM BLACKBURN IN KATHLEEN FERRIER A MEMOIR (EDITOR CARDUS, NEVILLE), LONDON, HAMISH HAMILTONLTD. (1954) P.15

^[2] Burton, Humphrey., LONDON The Sunday Times (24 April 1988) The Powerful Legacy of the Blackburn Diva – Review of The Kathleen Ferrier 1912-1953 by Maurice Leonard

^[3]LEONARD, MAURICE. THE LIFE OF KATHLEEN FERRIER 1912-1953 GUERNSEY, FUTURA (1988)  PP.153-155

^[4] IBID.P165

^[5] BLYTH, ALAN. FERRIER, KATHLEEN (MARY) IN THE GROVE BOOK OF OPERA SINGERS, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS (2008) P.158

^[6] Fifield, Christopher, ed. (2003). Letters and Diaries of Kathleen Ferrier. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press. ISBN 1-84383-012-4. Pp.183-184

^[7] IBID. P.125