Carousel Katherine is whirlwind success
OPERA singer Katherine Jenkins is used to hitting the right notes, but she insists that starring in the West End is the most petrifying experience of her life.
The mezzo-soprano has earned rave reviews for her performances in Carousel and is now set for a sparkling new career in musicals.
In fact, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber was so impressed by her portrayal of Julie Jordan in the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic he called her the “perfect lead”.
Little did he know Katherine, 36, who has sold four million albums, was crippled with nerves before she took to the stage at the London Coliseum.
She said: “It was incredibly nerve-racking for me – I was probably the most nervous person on the stage. This has always been a huge ambition of mine. Musicals were my first love, I have always loved them and have always wanted to do it. I was just waiting for the right project.” Baron Lloyd-Webber’s lavish praise has prompted speculation that he could team up with the Welsh singing sensation to form a West End powerhouse.
Katherine said his music was her first love and Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, starring Phillip Schofield, was the first musical she saw.
Lloyd Webber, 69, has been the creative talent behind some of Broadway and the West End’s most successful stage shows, including Cats, Phantom Of The Opera and Evita, helping him to amass a fortune of £715million.
He was knighted in 1992 and then made a peer by the Queen for services to music. He has won seven Tonys, three Grammys, an Oscar, 14 Ivor Novello Awards, seven Olivier Awards, a Golden Globe and a Brit Award.
His gushing email, fired off straight after Katherine had made her debut at the weekend, came after he had earlier called London’s musical scene “not great”.
But his note to Neath-born Katherine said she was “particularly wonderful”.
Last night she said praise from Lloyd Webber was “the biggest compliment you could ever get”.
She explained: “It is the best feeling in the world. The West End is world famous and the Coliseum With fellow star Nicholas Lyndhurst is world famous, so to be performing here is such an honour, such a privilege. I realise the opportunity for what it is.
“I don’t take this for granted – this was massive for me to be able to do this and I’m so grateful.”
Katherine is married to American artist and film actor-director Andrew Levitas, 39.
The couple have an 18-monthold daughter, Aaliyah.
She stars opposite tenor Alfie Boe, 43, as her husband Billy Bigelow, and Nicholas Lyndhurst, 55, in Carousel which runs in the West End for another month. Katherine said the birth of Aaliyah had left her an emotional wreck. “I really hope she doesn’t know who I am for a really long time,” she said.
“She should be a normal baby, I’m a normal mum – she’s going to vomit on me like everyone else.
“You have a child and everything is different, how you watch the news, people going through different things. It affects you in a different way. I’m an emotional wreck now.”