Review: Katherine Jenkins, Daydream Tour, York Barbican (From York Press)

Review: Katherine Jenkins, Daydream Tour, York Barbican

9:22am Friday 17th February 2012 in Music news and reviews By Charles Hutchinson

KATHERINE Jenkins had cried on the shoulder of National Symphony Orchestra conductor Anthony Inglis on the first night of her Daydream tour, telling her Oxford audience “it’s been tough” in the wake of her split from fiancé Gethin Jones.

The Welsh mezzo-soprano had wondered if she could last the tour itinerary, she enlightened her sold-out York Barbican audience on Wednesday, but cards, flowers and so many messages had helped her to pull through.

York was the penultimate night, and Katherine reflected that the stage had been the best place for her to be; indeed it made her the happiest she had been in a long time.

Appropriately, the image on the wall behind her and the white-tuxedoed orchestra was of seed heads flying off three dandelion stalks, as if her boyfriend troubles were being blown away.

Ironically, she does not imbue in her very pretty performance with the depth of drama, soul and emotion to match her recent personal life. She sings as beautifully as she dresses, the Forces Favourite with Marilyn Monroe curves and charming, delightful banter, and she delivers a thoroughly lovely performance of operatic favourites, a French version of I Dreamed A Dream, Leonard Cohen’s ubiquitous Hallelujah, and a duet of Lloyd Webber’s with Virginian smoothie Nathan Pacheco.

She is quite the most delicious mezzo-soprano you could magic up in a dream. No wonder an 18-year-old boy asked if she would join him at Greggs for a pasty.