CityLife

Katherine Jenkins

AFTER two nights of lad-orientated rock, the Sunday at Delamere Forest offers something completely different in the form of Welsh opera star Katherine Jenkins.

The biggest selling British classical artist, Jenkins has already managed quite a difficult feat in becoming a genuine crossover artist, going from classical singer into mainstream territory with consummate ease, no doubt learning from the car crash career that was her contemporary Charlotte Church.

 So with a mix of the traditional, the relatively obscure and the well-known, Jenkins is the ideal person to entertain a peculiarly well-to-do crowd who, to a person, have come complete with ostentatious picnic and chairs, which makes for an oddly reserved atmosphere.

It goes without saying she looks glamorously stunning, with various costume changes throughout the show proving that at least some of her success is down to her sense of style.

Yet to state her achievements are merely down to her looks, as some have claimed, is grossly unfair.

National Symphony Orchestra

Ably assisted by the National Symphony Orchestra, who plays expertly all night, throughout the evening her voice is stunning, able to reach a range of notes that have the audience looking on with hushed wonderment. 

The show only suffers when ‘support act’ All Angels do a turn during the show when Jenkins is changing dress.

An all girl four-piece, they lack any charisma, and lose credibility when they follow a particularly dodgy version of Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind by saying ‘and here’s another song about nature…’

They actually serve to make you appreciate Jenkins more.

The phrase ‘down-to-earth’ is horribly overused, but she comes across as very genuine; chatty and self-deprecating enough, she engages the crowd, ensuring they are fine when the rain starts to fall and even answering their questions in the second half of the show.

But it’s her voice that is the real star of the show, putting it to great use during pieces by Morricone, Rossini and, best of all, Sartori’s Time to Say Goodbye, the undisputed highlight of a show that proves exactly why Katherine Jenkins has been embraced by the mainstream with open arms.

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