1. Three operas you love most?

Der Ring des Nibelungen

Parsifal

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

2. Three favourite baritones?

Hans Hotter

Hermann Uhde

Tito Gobbi

Baritone Warwick FyfeBaritone Warwick Fyfe

3. Three favourite roles (you have performed or are scheduled to perform)?

Alberich

Beckmesser

Klingsor … or Holländer… or Mandryka… don’t ask such hard questions!

4. Most memorable musical experience as an audience member?

Parsifal, Bayreuth 1993

5. If you weren’t an opera singer, what would you be?

Unemployed. But for preference a writer.

6. Three operas you could happily never hear again?

Roméo et Juliette

Pearlfishers

Lakmé 

7. Funniest moment onstage?

When I reached round from behind slid my hand into an Aida’s cleavage mistaking her left breast for the arm I was meant to clutch.

8. Three favourite movies?

Berlin Alexanderplatz by Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Wagner by Tony Palmer

The Life of Brian

(Actually third place is a sort of dead heat involving umpteen films: The Shining, Clockwork Orange, Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive, Braindead, Videodrome, The Devils, The Thing (1982 version), Jaws, Alien… I could go on and on..)

9. Three operas you like but never get to see?

Khovanshchina

Friedenstag

Palestrina

10. A recording to be stranded with on a desert island?

Keilberth Ring

Meistersinger with Hotter as Sachs

Elektra – both the Solti/Nilsson one and the DVD with Rysanek, Varnay and Böhm

11. A singer of the past...