Tim Hughes talks to singer Katherine Jenkins about her fantastic year and starting a UK tour
An OBE, a whirlwind romance, a fairytale wedding at a Royal palace, and a chart-topping album. By anyone’s standards, Katherine Jenkins has had a good year.
An international star, who has performed in front of royalty, world leaders, a Pope, and — last New Year’s Eve — to more than a million Berliners at the Brandenburg Gate, she is now bringing things back to basics with a tour celebrating her more humble roots.
The mezzo-soprano’s Home Sweet Home Tour shows that, despite a decade of fame and success, the 34-year-old Welsh diva has certainly not lost touch with her background in Glamorgan.
It’s been an amazing year,” she says. “It’s been absolutely epic.
“Never have so many good things happened. There was the OBE, the wedding, the album going to number one... and then there was singing in Berlin. It was crazy.
“I didn’t know how they managed to fit so many people in. I couldn’t see the end of the crowd and I still don’t know what a million people looks like. It was a great occasion.”
The singer, who picked up her gong for services to music and charity, bubbles with excitement.
“I’ve been on a roll,” she laughs. “I have no idea what 2015 will bring, as it was such a good year before.”
She is talking from a bitingly cold New York City, where she shares an apartment with her American film director husband, Andrew Levitas. She insists Britain, where she also has a place, is still home.
“I was singing last night,” she says. “But now I’m going back to London. I am very lucky. And because of his job, he can come with me when I need to be on tour.”
Including the Valleys. “He’s keen to see lots of places in the UK,” she goes on. “And he loves Wales. He’s been a couple of times and is settling in.”
Her wedding to the 37-year-old New Yorker took place in Henry VIII’s Hampton Court Palace in September. Despite the setting, they kept it simple, by showbiz standards, with 200 relatives and friends, then a honeymoon in Marrakech. They did, however, seek permission from the Royal Household for one act of national pride: flying the Welsh dragon from the rooftop.
Her big day, which followed a reported six months of dating, coincided with another A List celebrity tying the knot; George Clooney marrying a British lawyer in Venice.
Katherine insists she was relieved to have media attention diverted from her own event. She maintains she is a simple Neath girl at heart, with singing being her main love.
Which is where the tour comes in. “I love being on tour,” she says. “One thing I’ve learned is no one teaches you how to cope with touring, but for me it’s being part of a team which feels like a family.”
The Home Sweet Home tour follows the release of an album of that name, which went in at number one in the classical chart and 10 in the mainstream one. It has 21 stops, including Oxford’s New Theatre on March 13, and a show in Cardiff the next day — and will see her perform favourites from her 10-year career.
“Ten years,” she gasps when I ask her how it feels – with Brit Awards, global tours, performances for British troops and a successful run on US TV show Dancing with the Stars.
“I had no idea any of this was going to happen and if you’d have told my 23-year-old self, I’d have freaked out. When I got my album deal, we didn’t tell anyone for six months as things like this don’t happen to people from Neath.”
A six-album deal was reported to be worth £1m; the highest ever for a British classical artist.
“I only concentrate on one album at a time. And I never look back. So to be doing this for 10 years and 10 albums later is incredible.”
An album a year is quite an achievement, I suggest. “It’s been the most amazing adventure and I still love it and I hope that comes across,” she says. Now being married to a director, is she tempted to make the leap to the screen? She giggles and says she hasn’t got enough time to do all the singing she is asked to do. That said, she put in a creditable turn on Doctor Who’s 2010 Christmas special.
“It was so cool to be asked. It’s not every day you get to save the planet by singing into a half-eaten screwdriver.”
Katherine Jenkins
New Theatre, Oxford
Friday, March 13
Tickets: £33.40 to £59.90, plus £2.85 transaction fee, from www.ticketweb.co.uk
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