One of my greatest joys in following the Classical Crossover genre, is the discovery of new artists – sometimes emerging talent, and others established performers who I just hadn’t come across before.
Since 2010, it has been my privilege and pleasure to attend an increasing number of live shows each year, meeting the performers whenever possible (some of whom have become personal friends) and forming friendships with other fans who I started to meet quite regularly at concerts.
Increasing, that is, until March 2020 when the global coronavirus pandemic spread to the UK, and the live music scene in my country was shut down overnight by government decree; a similar situation occurring in most countries across the world in the space of a few short weeks and months.
Musicians (particularly independent ones) are a resourceful bunch and many started streaming live music online via social media and other channels. Some heroes of the genre (Robert Scullen with his ‘Songbirds’ group, and Natasha Barbieri of CCM, to name but two of many) curated online events featuring a number of different artists. Online events are not bound by the limits of geography, so artists around the globe came to the attention of fans worldwide. Perhaps paradoxically then, I probably found more new (to me) classical crossover artists during lockdown than at any time since I first discovered the genre.
One group that I learned of during this time was ‘Bella Popera’, a trio of sopranos. I will admit that female voices are in general more pleasing to my ears than male, and my greatest pleasure comes from hearing a number of those voices together in harmony. As the live music scene gradually started to awaken over the summer, I was utterly delighted to find that Bella Popera were planning a concert in Ilford in November. Now I live in the far South West of the Greater London area, and Ilford is nearly as far to the North East, so it is not exactly familiar territory for me, but having established the feasibility of getting there by public transport I had no hesitation in booking.
Sadly, a new variant of Covid with a further wave of infections meant that all live events had to be cancelled for that month, and then the UK was plunged into another lockdown just before Christmas, lasting until mid-April this year.
Fast forward to the end of July, when out of the blue I received an email informing me that the Bella Popera show had been rescheduled to 18th September, in a different theatre in Redbridge (a few miles from Ilford, but under the same management) and that my booking had been automatically transferred. I could have cried – in the meantime I had booked to see Nadia Eide on that same date, in the very theatre where Bella Popera were originally booked to play. Adding to the frustration was the fact that my allocated seat was one of the best in the house, so it was with great sadness that I made the call to the box office to cancel my booking for Bella Popera.
To my dismay, I was informed just a few days later that Nadia’s show had sadly been cancelled. Aaaarrggghhhh!!! Still, every cloud has a silver lining – I was back on to the Redbridge website in a flash to rebook for Bella Popera, and managed to secure the same front row seat which I had so recently relinquished.
Moving on to the day of the show – Redbridge is an even longer journey than Ilford, but I arrived in good time after a day of varied events in Central London. Redbridge Drama Centre is housed in what appears to be a converted school building. The Lovegrove Theatre within the centre has steeply tiered seating affording a good view from all seats of the performance area, which is on the same floor level as the front row of seats. Thus I was separated from the performers only by a couple of large monitor speakers.
The lights dimmed, the backing musicians took up their places at the back of the stage and the anticipation mounted until…
… the stage lights went up and the girls appeared, wearing sparkly silver long dresses (Julia – all silver, Hayley – silver stripes on a pale pink base, and Amy – silver swirls on a white base)… to some horrendous sounds and feedback from the speakers. Undeterred, they pressed on with their first song – ‘Never Enough’. Thankfully the sound problems seemed to be resolved by the end of the song and the girls introduced themselves, explaining that as it was a classical crossover show they would be singing in a variety of musical styles.
To illustrate this, they launched into a jazz medley of ‘It Don’t Mean a Thing’, ‘Hit the Road, Jack’ and ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy’. The musical director, Chris, was then dismissed as Hayley took to the keyboard for ‘I Can’t Help Falling in Love’. One of my favourite songs was enhanced by some glorious harmony with Hayley taking the high soprano parts, Amy tending toward mezzo and Julia covering the mid-range.
Stools were brought out and Chris was given a reprieve for the next number. Before the show, the audience had been firmly instructed to ensure that all personal devices were turned off (hence no photos from me) as the show was being recorded. It was rather a surprise then, when Hayley asked us to take our mobile phones out, turn the torch light on and wave them in the air for ‘You Raise Me Up’.
Amy had been very shy as a child, so her parents had sent her to theatre school, where she discovered a love of dancing, particularly hip-hop. She gave a demonstration as Hayley joined her for Bon Jovi’s ‘Living on a Prayer’, with Julia joining in towards the end.
Julia and Hayley told us how much they loved to travel, and their favourite airline was British Airways, not only for its luxurious first class seating (??) but also for the wonderful music they used in their advertisements, prompting a beautiful performance of the ‘Flower Duet’. Their favourite place apparently was South America, leading to Amy re-joining them for a gorgeous sultry rendition of ‘Havana’.
Hayley grew up surrounded by many musical influences (almost everything except hip-hop) but her greatest love was musical theatre. Her shining moment of glory in her first starring pantomime role as Cinderella had been somewhat dulled by a four year old in the audience shouting out “Mummy, I don’t like her”. The trio then donned tiaras (or should that be tiarae?) for a medley of Disney songs including ‘Part of Your World’, ‘A Whole New World’, ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight’ and ‘Let It Go’. By this time they decided they had had enough of being princesses, so they ditched the tiaras for ‘I Wanna Be Like You’, with a dancing interlude.
All too soon, Amy was announcing that they had reached the end of the show. Thankfully, the finale was not a single song, but a medley of ABBA hits, starting with ‘Thank You For the Music’. White feather boas came out for ‘Mamma Mia’, ‘Gimme, Gimme, Gimme’, ‘Voulez Vous’, ‘The Winner Takes It All’, ‘Take a Chance on Me’ and finally ‘Dancing Queen’.
Rapturous applause and a standing ovation had the desired effect, and the trio soon returned to the stage for a lovely encore of ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ with Amy, Hayley and Julia taking solo parts in turn before joining together in beautiful harmony to round off the show.
Then followed a welcome bonus. Since the show was being recorded, we were asked if we would mind them doing a retake due to the sound problems in the opening number. Nobody wanted to leave as we were treated to a reprise of ‘Never Enough’. It was still not enough, but all good things must come to an end, and I can’t wait to hear them again.
