Dame Felicity Lott

Apart from the people that say, oh, God, why is that woman on and not the one who should be?

very important.

I was never any good at just learning sort of noises and that unfortunately kept me away from quite a lot of roles that I think I might have got somewhere near, some Janacek for instance and some Russian, Tatiana in Tchaikovsky's Onegin.

I think I would have been able to play her from the kind of insecurity of the woman point of view, the vulnerability of her and

Yes.

German came later.

I studied it at school and didn't like it.

I thought it was guttural and ugly.

And then one day Graham Johnson, who was my accompanist for years and years and adored and esteemed colleague, played me a recording of Lottie Lehman reading German poetry.

It was so beautiful.

Not so much.

The only Italian opera I sang was by Mozart, really.

I mean, I can order my pasta and I can... But it's not a language that I'm confident in or happy in.

And I've learned it a bit.

Obviously, you have to.

You've got to learn a bit of Italian, but...

Yes.

And it would be French and German and English also.

A lot of Britain, actually.

I haven't done actually that much opera in French, really, because quite a lot of it is too high and too showy and too...