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I don’t recall what I first sang for Madame, but I remember my stepfather being in the room and my mother playing for me. After I finished, Madame gave a low chuckle, then said gravely, “That was just lovely.” She counseled my parents, saying that I was so young and that it might be better to allow me to be a child a little longer and bring me back when I was, say, twelve or fourteen years old; plenty of time then to study in earnest with her if I wanted to, and my voice would have matured and would be ready for training.

But my voice developed so rapidly that by the time I was nine and a half, it was pretty obvious that I was going to sing, and sing quite well. Pop went back to Madame and pleaded with her to take me on, and she finally agreed. From then on my lessons were entirely with her and not with Pop, which was a relief to me. Thus my proper singing training began.

I
TOOK LESSONS WITH
Madame once a week at first. She was living in Leeds, but traveled regularly down to London to teach at Weeke’s Studios in Hanover Square.

The place was fascinating. Walking the corridors to Madame’s classroom, I heard a cacophony of voices and instruments coming from the different rooms. My own singing with Madame just added to the chorus, and didn’t feel like any big deal. Once our studio door was closed, I felt pretty much sealed off from the rest—yet part of a special community at the same time.

Madame played the piano badly, and she had long, pretty fingernails that clacked away on the ivory keys. She always wore good rings on her hands to give her something else to look at during the many hours of teaching. Her accompaniment was mostly only “suggested,” so one filled in the blanks in one’s head as one was singing, but it didn’t matter because she was a superb teacher.

She was a dramatic soprano, having been fairly well known for playing the role of Old Nokomis in Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s
Hiawatha
at the Royal Albert Hall. She performed many oratorios, concerts, and radio programs, and had an amazing singing voice, which produced a kind of flute-like sound, especially in her higher range. Rather than coming out of her throat, it seemed to pass down her nose. It was a particular technique that she had perfected, and later, I realized that her voice resembled that of Kirsten Flagstad, the Norwegian soprano, whom she admired.

Madame would sit at the piano and I would sit or occasionally stand
beside her, and we’d work for a long time on technique. She explained to me, “I’m going to give you lots of mental pictures in terms of placement. One of these pictures will fall into place one day, and you will have found your vocal position.”

We always began our lessons with breathing exercises and then gentle scales, one in particular called the “five-nine-thirteen,” which was the notes of any scale sung in chromatic sequence up and back again, first five, then nine, then all thirteen of the full octave. I would sing these scales using assorted vowels, usually a strong B, the “Buh” pulling the voice forward, followed by a long E. These exercises strengthened the voice, placing it behind the teeth and forward off the throat so that one didn’t swallow the sound. We worked with “Bay’s” and “Bi’s,” “Mee’s” and “Dee’s.” The “Oo’s” and “Oh’s” were harder for me to sustain.

Madame said, “Think of a beautiful string of pearls, and each pearl is identical to the next. I want you to bring the high notes down to where you are placing your low notes and bring the low notes up. As you come down, bring the voice
up
and as you go
up,
bring it
down
.” I learned what a wonderful long line of sound this technique makes, which is why, I believe, in later years I was able to glissando up two or three octaves, without a break.

Being a young voice in a young throat, my muscles would occasionally ache, but little by little, with Madame’s tuition and careful guidance, I was able to improve and push one step further. After every lesson I noticed greater strength in my vocal equipment.

After scales were finished, we worked on simple ballads, but as I advanced, we moved on to more complicated pieces—operatic coloratura arias in particular. (By age twelve, I was blazing away at the most difficult technical passages, which seldom bothered me at all.)

We practiced Handel a great deal, using just the exercise vowels at first, then progressing to the words: songs like “I Know That My Redeemer Liveth,” and the “Rejoice” from the
Messiah,
and “Oh, Had I Jubal’s Lyre.” Madame always said, “When in doubt, return to Handel. Handel will never let you down vocally. Anytime, practice Handel.” She praised the composer for his knowledge of words that singers can hang onto, to help strengthen a voice without harm. Handel wrote many long
passages that required good breath control, and these were invaluable exercises.

Madame also put great emphasis on the ends of phrases. For example, if I was coming to the end of a song and holding the last note, she would say, “Follow it, follow it, follow it—see it going down the road in front of you as far as you can. See it disappearing into the distance. Now just close the mouth on it and finish the sound.”

The lyrics at the end of Handel’s “Rejoice” are “Behold, thy King cometh unto thee!” and as I sang the word “thee-e-e-e-e-,” I’d hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it—but if I wasn’t careful, I’d go “thee-uh” as my vocal line finished, and the voice would fall back into my mouth. She’d tell me to “close the sound beyond the breath.” Lo and behold, the voice and the word held true.

Many voices have a natural break going from mid-voice into a higher register. I call it “gear shifting.” Madame was very adamant that gear shifting was out of the question, and that one should be able to move up or down in a smooth line and without a change in tone. It’s required of opera singers, but for musical theater and popular music, it can sound too “proper,” too formal a way of singing. She did not let me use a chest voice at all at first, which was extremely good training for me as a youngster. Later, as I sang more and more musical theater, a chest voice became essential at times—and then she actually worked with me on that, too, helping me bridge the gap between chest voice and soprano, using technique and thought.

Madame hoped very much that I would go into opera, but I always sensed that it was too big a stretch for me. My voice was extremely high and thin, and though clean and clear, it never had the necessary guts and weight for opera. Classical singers never use microphones—they soar above and over an orchestra. It’s unbelievable to me how they do it. It’s full-bore singing, and although in many operas it only amounts to about twenty minutes or so of true, flat-out vocal effort, it’s nevertheless a question of lungs and volume and strength.

I could understand why Madame’s weight gave her dramatic voice such power, because good singing does come from the whole body—from well-planted feet and a solid stance on strong legs, to diaphragm
control and correct vocal placement. The rest is brain/muscle coordination and air passing through vocal cords, combined with a trained ear and true pitch.

Though Madame gave me the best technique I could possibly have had, I think her ambition for me to go into opera and to try to emulate her sound was, finally, impractical. I didn’t seem able to find what she called “that special place,” though I tried and tried. My attempts usually resulted in a somewhat pinched, nasal sound. Madame’s technique was correct and safe—and for her, foolproof—but for me, I felt it didn’t allow for a certain reality. I was “lifting” the voice up into the head, which is essential, but the nasal sound never seemed as true for me as a slightly more open, released sound. When I finally found
that
voice, it was an adaptation of everything she’d ever given me. By the time we had worked together for fifteen years or so, I knew enough to know what was correct and what wasn’t, though one never stops learning, thinking, feeling, making vocal choices that are as safe as possible. Continued maintenance and “refresher courses” are essential.

Singers seldom take classes with other pupils, and thus lack the opportunity to make comparisons. We don’t
see
what we do, as we would in a ballet class in front of a mirror. It is all about sensing, listening, making subtle adjustments, finding out
why
something doesn’t work and solving the problem. After all the practice, one relies on the technique to “hold,” so that it virtually becomes second nature. Then, one concentrates on the melody, the phrasing, the lyrics—and the joy of giving it to an audience.

The work can be lonely—much like that of a writer, I suspect. But the rewards, when they come, are to render one humble, to bring one to one’s knees with gratitude.

MADAME’S TEACHING WAS
all about vocal placement. She used lyrics to help give the voice a foundation. She didn’t coach me much as to the
meaning
of the lyric—that is something I came to later in life. Occasionally, she would make me
articulate
a word—“beautiful,” for example, to convey its loveliness—but time and again she drilled into me that if I was true to my consonants—let’s say, the strong B, as in, again, “
B
ehold…thy
K
ing cometh unto
Th
ee”—then the consonants would
pull my voice forward, and keep my vowels true. For Madame, it was the foundation, the technique, that mattered most.

Right from the start, I was expected to practice daily, of course, and I had to really knuckle down. Madame never had any printed pages, though she did mark my music constantly and I took copious notes. My mother followed Madame’s notations and helped me remember whatever was marked, especially when I was very young. The exercises were practiced alone, but my mother often came and worked on specific songs with me afterward.

She was a wonderful accompanist. It was a joy to sing with her because, after Madame’s terrible piano playing, Mum’s music sounded almost fully orchestrated. Having sung technically for so long, I felt uplifted and set free by hearing the composition played the way it was intended.

There were certain songs, however, that I simply could not sing. Songs in the minor key or with a yearning reference, like “Songs My Mother Taught Me” or “O My Beloved Father,” from Puccini’s
Gianni Schicchi,
for example. I was overwhelmed by the sadness of the lyric combined with the pure sweetness of a melody. I would feel my throat closing as I choked up. Edging behind the piano stool so that Mum couldn’t see, I would fight tears for all I was worth, but suddenly the voice would be gone in a mess of emotion. Mum would turn around and see me simply bawling my eyes out.

“Oh, Julia, don’t be so
stupid
!” she would say. But I couldn’t help it. More often than not, work with my mother ended on a somewhat acrimonious note, because there was no singing once the tears came.

With Madame, I would cry for different reasons. There were tears of fatigue, tears of frustration or rage with myself when I could not get something right. I think there was such a turmoil going on in my breast anyway, sometimes it was a catharsis to just let go.

Madame was always understanding.

“You must never be embarrassed when you are moved by music,” she counseled. “It shows that you are a sensitive human being, capable of much feeling.” It was one of the reasons she would not let me sing
much Puccini. She wouldn’t let me try the great arias from
Madame Butterfly
or
La Bohème
—melodies I longed to sing because of their beauty.

“No, you will sing them when you’re older and your voice is more mature. Right now it would just pull you to pieces vocally. It’s too emotional; too beautiful and sad, and you will be caught up in it and damage the instrument.” She was right, of course.

JUST BEFORE THE
end of the school term at Cone-Ripman, I took my Grade IV ballet exam and received a decent mark. Then I worked for and took my Grade V, and something magical happened.

I remember standing in a corridor at school and feeling weary—awaiting my turn with the examiner. I could hear the piano music being played for the student ahead of me. I was nervous, I felt unready, and even wondered if I would hold up because of my fatigue. My body seldom felt as strong as I needed it to be. All the other girls seemed so enthusiastic and capable.

My name was called and I hesitantly went into the room. Sunlight was shafting through a big window and the studio was filled with light.

“Come forward, dear,” the examiner said pleasantly. “Let me meet you and say hello.”

She put me at ease as she asked me to show her my barre work. The pianist played the set piece for my dance quite beautifully, and suddenly, surprisingly, I was inspired. Everything fell into place: my body felt supported, my arms extended and became graceful, my legs worked, the energy came at the right time. Having stood outside in the dark corridor before, feeling so unsure and fearful, I entered this beautiful sunlit room to discover a kind human being, a wonderful pianist, glorious music that uplifted me…and I was able to let go, to dance with freedom and pleasure.

When my exam result finally arrived, Mum and Auntie both came to collect me from school, and they told me that I had received a “highly commended.” It was a big moment for me, one of the first times that I felt I’d done something really well.

Nonetheless, because of my singing lessons and going to school on the train every day, dancing, doing homework, and singing practice at night, I had become pale and chronically tired. As the summer holidays began, my mother announced, “You’re not going back to Cone-Ripman,” which was a big relief to me. I was enrolled in Woodbrook, a local girls’ school in Beckenham, and would begin classes in the autumn.