On 16 November Angelina Dorlin-Barlow joins the Chichester Singers and Southern Pro Musica for Mendelssohn’s Elijah at Chichester Cathedral. Singing key roles like the Angel and the Queen, Angelina highlights the work’s rich storytelling and variety, featuring solo arias, duets, and choruses. Excited for her Chichester debut, she calls Elijah “an exciting, texturally dynamic masterpiece.” Known for her love of Handel and Mozart, Angelina brings inspiration from artists like Joni Mitchell into her performances.
On Saturday 16 November the Chichester Singers and Southern Pro Musica presents Mendelssohn’s Elijah at Chichester Cathedral.
Angelina Dorlin-Barlow will be singing the solo alto parts in Elijah. Simon O’Hea is in conversation with Angelina.
Simon
Tell me about the various roles played in Elijah.
Angelina
The alto parts are quite significant. I come on as the Angel, the Queen and in other roles.
We’re telling an interesting story. It’s impressive because many choral works don’t necessarily always have so many different characters. These works usually tell a story using many people (the choir), but it’s exciting that this work has so many different characters.
Simon
And have you sung in the cathedral before?
Angelina
I’ve never been to Chichester, actually. I’m aware of the Chichester Psalms by Bernstein, but I’m not familiar with Chichester itself, so I’m excited to be coming to perform.
Simon
Great. If you were in front of an audience of people asking , “why should I come and come on that evening 16th November?”, what would be your response?
Angelina
Elijah is an exciting work. And there’s so much variety. We have a bass soloist, a tenor soloist, a mezzo soprano, and a soprano all singing different roles, and so automatically there’s a lot of variety in their sound and delivery, which is exciting for the audience to hear. We will sing solo arias, duets and choruses, so there’s lots of textural contrast to enjoy as well.
We will rehearse on the day with the Chichester Singers, who have already been rehearsing over several weeks. The soloists do their own work on the piece and then we bring it all together in the rehearsal on the day.
Simon
And how did you come in contact with the Singers?
Angelina
Through their conductor, Jonathan Willcocks. I performed with him at the Leith Hill Music Festival in Dorking earlier in the year. We performed Mozart’s Requiem and Vaughan Williams’ A Serenade to Music, which made for a really wonderful concert.
Simon
Give me a memorable concert experience.
Angelina
I performed A Serenade to Music by Vaughan Williams at the Royal Festival Hall with some of my classical music heroes. I was alongside Kitty Whatley, Sarah Connolly, Nadine Benjamin and Roderick Williams just to name a few. It was a star-studded line up, and also included a few of us who were still students at the Royal College of Music, so it was very exciting for me. We repeated the performance at Saffron Hall. We were conducted by Edward Gardner with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. It’s an amazing piece. We performed the version for chorus and 16 soloists. The performance was broadcasted on BBC Radio 3.
Simon
What would you like to be doing in five years’ time?
Angelina
I’d love to be doing both concert work and opera. I’d love to have the opportunity to perform a recital at the Wigmore Hall, or to be singing at a couple of the bigger opera houses in the UK or abroad. It would be great to have a few more operatic roles under my belt.
Simon
Which composers do you love and why?
Angelina
Handel and Mozart write exceedingly well for young singers, and they’ve both written so many amazing mezzo-soprano roles. For example, Ruggiero in Alcina is a dream role for me. Cherubino is very fun to sing, and as is Sesto in La Clemenza Di Tito by Mozart and Sesto in Giulio Cesare by Handel. They’re all exciting roles for me as a young mezzo-soprano.
I also listen to a lot of pop music. Joni Mitchell is a really special songwriter and singer and is a wonderful storyteller. I can take a lot of inspiration from storytellers like her and bring that into my classical singing and approach – it’s so much more personal. As a young classical singer I’m singing a lot of other people’s music rather than my own, although I have sung my own compositions as well, which is also exciting. Joni Mitchell’s singing and delivery is of course quite different from how I usually deliver my classical singing but I find her music moving and her storytelling feels so intimate, something to strive for particularly in my recital performance. I find that very special.
Simon
I think she’s very relevant to today. And I think that’s where I think it’s quite nice to find relevance in pieces such as Elijah. If you read the interview I recently did with Gareth John (another soloist at the Chichester concert), you can see that he brings that out.
About Angelina
Visit https://angelinadorlinbarlow.co.uk.
